Gal Gadot spent nine months learning how to run properly for The Runner. By the end of filming, she was moving around on crutches.
The 41-year-old actress said she injured her feet during production of the new Prime Video thriller, which requires her character to race across London after her son is kidnapped. “I finished the film on crutches,” Gadot told PEOPLE, explaining that at one point she “broke my feet” and eventually reached the limit of what she could physically complete before recovering.
The irony is built into the role. Gadot plays Maia Marten, a high-powered London attorney whose morning run becomes a race to save her abducted son after a mysterious caller orders her to keep moving through the city and follow a series of commands.
Gadot was not an enthusiastic runner before taking the part. At the Los Angeles premiere, she said she trained for nine months because running had never been part of her routine. After months of preparation followed by the physically demanding shoot, she was more than ready to take a break.
She Finished the Film on Crutches
Gadot did not explain exactly how the injury occurred. “At one point I broke my feet and that was it,” she told PEOPLE, saying the injury forced her to recover and placed limits on what she could finish during the initial shoot.
The production worked around those limitations and later picked up material that could not be completed while she was injured. Gadot said the experience had thoroughly exhausted the idea of running for her after spending so many months doing it for the film.
Her injury did not prevent the movie from demanding sustained physical work before that point. Gadot said that despite years of action roles, she had never made a film that required her to run throughout the day, every day, and described the production process as involving considerable trial, error and adjustment.
She has since recovered. Just Jared reported that Gadot took several months away from intensive running, while she told PEOPLE that she is now back to normal and ready to work again.
She Trained for Nine Months Just to Learn How to Run
Gal Gadot says she ran like “Phoebe from ‘Friends” before training for her latest film “The Runner.”#GalGadot #TheRunner pic.twitter.com/DGtyOKN8D6
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 28, 2026
Gadot had already described the preparation at the Aug. 27 Los Angeles premiere. She said she was “not a runner” before taking the role and joked that her old technique looked more like Phoebe’s famously unconventional running style on Friends than that of an experienced athlete.
Preparing for Maia required nine months of training. Gadot worked with Olympian Malachi Davis, who represented Great Britain in the 400 meters and 4×400-meter relay at the 2004 Athens Games, to change her technique and make running feel more natural.
“I hated running before,” Gadot said at the premiere, explaining that Davis eventually taught her to “love-ish” running. She separately told PEOPLE that the goal was to learn how to run correctly until she no longer had to consciously think about every part of her technique.
‘The Runner’ Turns a Morning Jog Into the Entire Crisis
The Runner begins with Maia on a routine morning run before she learns that her son has been abducted. The caller’s instructions are simple and brutal, keep moving, obey every command and tell no one. If she stops, her son dies.
The premise sends Gadot through London’s streets and underground spaces as Maia tries to follow the caller’s instructions while finding a way to save her son. The trailer shows her running through multiple locations, fighting, jumping and navigating a city that effectively becomes part of the chase.
Kevin Macdonald directed the psychological thriller from a screenplay by Mark Gibson. Damian Lewis, Rory Wilmot, Alfred Enoch and Phoenix Di Sebastiani also appear in the film, with Prime Video listing Gadot as Maia and Lewis as the mysterious caller.
By the time Gadot reached the Los Angeles premiere on Aug. 27, the crutches were gone. She walked the red carpet for the film she had once been forced to finish without being able to stay fully on her feet. The Runner premieres globally on Prime Video on Sept. 2.