After leaving the military, she started law school. “A casting director saw my card at my modeling agency and wanted me to test for a Bond girl,” she recalled. “I said, ‘I’m not an actress, it’s in English, it’s pointless.’ I literally went to keep my agent happy.” She didn’t get the part (it went to Olga Kurylenko), but the process of callbacks and screen tests awoke her interest in acting.

She started to take acting classes, and several months later she was cast in an Israeli television series, then landed a role in the “Fast and Furious” franchise. “I was very lucky, but I don’t feel like I just blew up,” Ms. Gadot said. “I got to a point, just before ‘Wonder Woman,’ when I had so many almosts — great audition, great camera tests, but always the runner-up — that I was ready to give up and go back to law school.”

Her husband, Yaron Versano, persuaded her to hang on, and just at that point, Ms. Gadot got a call from Warner Bros. to audition for an unnamed role that turned out to be Wonder Woman in “Batman v Superman.” After “six torturing weeks,” Ms. Gadot heard that she had the part and began intensive physical training to get into shape for the role. While she knew a stand-alone “Wonder Woman” was a possibility, it wasn’t yet confirmed. “I think they needed to feel sure I could handle it,” she said.

The path to a Wonder Woman feature film has been a long one for Warner Bros., with various development projects dating to the mid-1990s, and with many directors, including Joss Whedon, attached at different times. In late 2014, after reports that the studio was looking for a female director, Michelle MacLaren signed on to the project but left a few months later, citing creative differences. The studio turned to Ms. Jenkins, best known for “Monster.”

“I had been talking to them about ‘Wonder Woman’ for 10 years,” Ms. Jenkins said in a recent Skype interview. “They were interested, but they had a certain idea of what they wanted to do, and didn’t feel I was the right director. Then, I think they realized that they did want to go in my direction.”