LIFE IS TOUGH, BUT SO AM I

{Courtesy Gage Skidmore}

A mantra for Patti Jenkins all her life

has been

"Life is tough, but so am I."

It was her mantra while filming 

Wonder Woman, too.

Her father, William T. Jenkins, was an Air Force captain.

He fought in Vietnam, earning a Silver Star 
and later ran maneuvers out of a military base in England; 

his family joined him on all his adventures overseas.

In interviews, Jenkins has talked a lot about how the heroism of her dad shaped “Wonder Woman.” 

She even has a dedication to him in the film’s closing credits.

Do you know what the hardest scene 

for her to shoot was?

No, not the No Man's Land sequence

though it was bitterly cold and sprawled over so much territory.

(A scene that the not-so-smart studio heads wanted to take out!  

It proved to be the heart of the movie is a very real sense.)

No, not the Amazon Battle Sequence 

although it was filmed separately on three different locations 

for all the stunt work and special effects and close-up's.

It was a true logistic nightmare.

It was Steve Trevor's sacrifice in the plane 

filled with deadly gas bombs.

Not because of the logistics, 

the special effects, or the stunt work.

It was a more personal reason.

Patti doesn’t talk much about how her father died, at 31, when she was only 7. 

“He passed away after taking off from a runway exactly like the one that Steve Trevor takes off on,” 

“He crashed in the ocean.” 

She’s still not sure exactly what happened.

 “Nobody knows. He was in the middle of a NATO mock dogfight. 

They crash a lot. You’re doing a tricky maneuver.”

 Gal Gadot says she thought of Jenkins’ dad when she saw the film for the first time, 

especially during the climactic scene where Steve makes the ultimate sacrifice for the woman he loves. 

“I think that even in the short time that her father was present in her life, 

he had a lot of effect on who she became,” Gal says.

DO YOU HAVE 

A PERSONAL MANTRA 

OR MOTTO?

FROM WHOM DID YOU TAKE IT?