Not unlike the iconic female superhero she portrays onscreen, Gal Gadot was a pillar of feminine strength at Sunday night's Golden Globes — and she didn't have to fly in on Wonder Woman's majestic cape to get her point across loud and clear.
Rather, Gadot was one of the many A-list actresses who wore black in solidarity with the Time's Up initiative and the very necessary message behind it, so her look spoke for itself, and her red lipstick filled in the blanks. Once associated with witches and women of the night, red is the colour of power and passion, of courage and confidence, and, by extension, not being here for anyone's bullshit.
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But according to celebrity makeup artist Sabrina Bedrani, who worked with Gadot ahead of the Globes, the bold red shade wasn't originally part of the plan. "I started with her eyes and the rest of her face, no lip colour, and then she put the dress on and I said, 'I know exactly what this needs,'" Bedrani tells us. "I put it on, and I just said, 'How about that?' And she said, 'Perfect.' You know, sometimes you try on 50 shades, but I saw the outfit, I saw the hair, I saw the jewellery, and I thought, no, I know exactly what you need. I knew exactly what red it was, and it just happened."
That red was Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Bombshell Red — the perfect foreshadowing for today's announcement that Gadot has been named the brand's latest global ambassador as part of its trailblazing new Live Boldly campaign. "As we go forward, we have a new expression of our mission, and that is Live Boldly," says Global Brand President Anne Talley. "Our mission is to support and encourage women to pursue their own dreams with confidence, strength, optimism, passion, and style, and we think that Gal truly embodies that spirit. That's how she lives her life, and she really does make an impact in the world with her strength and her feminine power."
The timing is just right for Gadot, who sees herself on the front lines of this cultural shift — one that champions women going after not just their own personal goals but seizing full control of how they choose to show up to the world and how they choose to make an impact, and the role of beauty and makeup as a tool to help define how the rest of the world sees them. "I'm so happy that we have these changes coming, and they're happening now, in my generation, in our generation, and I'm here to witness and be part of it," she tells Refinery29 exclusively.
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Revlon, Gadot says, celebrates and recognises the same feminine power that's driving those essential cultural conversations, reinforcing the desperate need for dramatic change in Hollywood and the rest of society as we know it. "Everything that these initiatives and Time's Up stand for is much-needed and wonderful and positive and I will give and do my one-thousand-percent for it," she told us. She hopes to redefine roles for women in the industry, too — more Wonder Woman, less damsel-in-distress.
Of course, a woman doesn’t need a red lip as a prerequisite for conquering the world. But sometimes looking the part can make you feel a little bit more like a superhero in your day to day life, whether that means red lipstick or no lipstick — or even a tiara that also doubles as a deadly throwing weapon, just for emergencies.