According
to Empire Magazine, former model Uma Thurman was one of the
100 most Sexiest Stars in 1995. Born in Boston, Massachusetts
on April 20, 1970, she made her debut in Hollywood in the film,
Kiss Daddy Goodnight (1987). Her first taste of stardom, however,
came through her role as Cécile de Volanges in Dangerous
Liasons, in 1988. In 1994 she received an Oscar nomination for
her role as Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. Over the years she
has dazzled her audiences by playing many diversified characters
in her movies, such as Fantine in Les Miserables (1998), Poison
Ivy in Batman and Robin (1997) and Black Mamba in Kill Bill
(2004). On December 3, Uma Thurman talked to the Hollywood Foreign
Press Association about her experiences as an actress, as well
as her latest movie, Paycheck.
Have
you ever done anything strictly for a paycheck?
I've
been so lucky that I've been able to be paid for what I love
to do for most of my life. I did when I was twelve-years-old
because my father was withholding my allowance, convince the
man in the local Chinese restaurant to let me wash dishes and
that was my first job aside from baby-sitting at the ripe old
age of twelve and I only lasted there like a couple of months
I was twelve and I think he got a little worried so one day
he came up to me and he said, "Oh, no, Uma, no work here.
No, no. You're a girl. Go home" I was very impressed with
getting minimum wage at twelve though and in cash.
You
have worked with Ben Affleck for X number of months and you
must have perceptions about him. Can you see what J. Lo sees
in him?
Oh, yes. Ben's what you call a catch. He's intelligent, he's
beautiful, he's funny, he's self-effacing, he's sensitive, very
much of a gentleman. I can see her problem. I can see it. It
must be a terrible, it's tough to love such a catch I'm sure
but he's a wonderful guy.
He's a good example of a celebrity, an actor, a movie star,
whatever category you want to put him in. He seems to carry
it with a lot of grace and humour. He doesn't pity himself;
he'll humorously complain maybe but he is not bitter about the
press. He's very gracious.
What
are the moments that you really cherish in your life?
I guess probably the moments that I never would be able to forget,
you know. The birth of my children, the trip I took with my
father when I was twenty-three and we really talked about our
relationship. My birthday party when I was three. I remember
that because my mother surrounded the cake with these beautiful
flowers. My grandmother was still alive. I don't know. There's
so many. Those are a few.
How
do you usually celebrate the New Year?
I always find New Year's is a bummer. You always want to do
something so spectacular for New Year's and it's a bust, you
know. I've had such bad luck with New Year's. I have often found
that the best New Year's is when you don't make a plan and you
don't try to have a good time. That's the only time that I've
had a really nice New Year's. Otherwise it's like the ra-ra
of it all and somehow it's depressing and in regard to resolutions.
Well, I usually make a resolution every year about my work-out
regime and how I'm going to improve it. That's one. Depending
on whether I've beaten back, my unspeakable, struggle with getting
rid of cigarettes. If I am not smoking, then I don't have to
make the resolution. If I have smoked, then I make the resolution
so I. Those are two of my main struggles.
Can
you talk about your family and how do they support you?
I have one older brother, two younger. I feel very bad for my
family in a way. One of the hardships is when your own choices
in life have a difficult effect on your family I think that
my brothers were sort of caught off guard but they're good and
we are a very close family and obviously that's been one of
the single greatest sources of strength to me in my whole life.
Do
you have anything professionally planned apart from 'Kill Bill'
for next year?
Well, I've been tinkering with this romantic comedy that I've
been trying to develop for a couple of years so I am hoping
maybe -- maybe the moment is right and I'll get it together.
I really enjoy working with the writer and, you know, dabbling
in producing. It's really fun. Makes me feel grown up or something.
What
type of role is it?
It's a comic role. For me it's a good role. I have an incredible
soft spot for screwball comedy. There's something else that
I am thinking about doing, a character part, in a really fun
character-driven movie that I might do in the spring. I've got
a lot of home work to do.
The
two characters that we have seen you in recently, one is a take
charge woman and this one although she's very intelligent, her
way that she fights is very different. The man still rescues
you in some respect so I was wondering if you can address that?
Well, you know, each character belongs to their piece. I mean,
there's something incredibly liberating in some mad way about
Kill Bill and the ferocious courage of the bride. That was really
amazing but there's another part. You know if I didn't believe
I could be rescued I'd be so depressed. Everybody needs to be
rescued sometimes. I don't get offered to play the girl very
much. I really liked that. It's funny because actresses always
complain about it and I was like oh, I just want to be the girlfriend.
I just want to be the girl and sure, I'll kick a few people
but let him do all the kicking so one of the things that really
appealed to me about it was just to play a pretty regular woman.
There
must be something in the professional world that you are uncomfortable
or outraged about.
You won't believe this but actually I was really quite shy when
I started and I remember reading once they had something called
an Uma which was the person who walked into a party, migrated
immediately into the corner and started smoking and it's someone
coined this from me and it was terrible. ‘That's an Uma like
a wallflower, neurotic dud, you know’. That was really a bummer.
But I feel like I've gotten a lot better at it and I feel like
I've grown a little bit, I try to communicate better. It's all
about communication and with actors, I realised this because
it was true of me, whenever actors get funky, it's not because
they think they're great, it's because they think they suck.
It's really just insecurity.
I think
in a way once you kind of run the gamut and, you know, you've
got to keep going, you've started to grow, you don't always
do it well but you do the best you can and you've heard that
you suck and you've heard that, some people like you, it gets
a little easier. I really enjoy what I do now too because, I'm
much better at it than I was when I was eighteen. You got to
be willing to believe. You're an actor, you've just got to know
you're going to get it, someday, so if it stops you from being
happy in the moment then you really are a loser.
Interview
courtesy of Munawar Hossain Piyal of the HFPA