Uma Thurman

American Actress

About Uma Thurman

Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American actress, producer and fashion model. Prolific in film and television productions encompassing a variety of genres, she had her breakthrough in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), following appearances on the December 1985 and May 1986 covers of British Vogue. Thurman rose to international prominence with her role as Mia Wallace in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award, the BAFTA Award, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Hailed as Tarantino’s muse, she reunited with the director to play The Bride in Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2 (2003 and 2004), which brought her two additional Golden Globe Award nominations.Established as a Hollywood actress, Thurman’s other notable films include Henry & June (1990), The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), Batman & Robin (1997), Gattaca (1997), Les Misérables (1998), Paycheck (2003), The Producers (2005), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), and Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013) and The House That Jack Built (2018). In 2011, she was a member of the jury for the main competition at the 64th Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, she was named president of the 70th edition’s “Un Certain Regard” jury. Thurman made her Broadway debut in The Parisian Woman (2017–2018).

Thurman won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Film for her performance in the made-for-HBO film Hysterical Blindness (2002) and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her five-episode role in the NBC musical series Smash (2012). She has also starred in the miniseries The Slap (2015) and the series Imposters (2017–2018), Chambers (2019) and Super Pumped (2022).

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Quotes by Uma Thurman

Before I had my child, I thought I knew all the boundaries of myself, that I understood the limits of my heart. It’s extraordinary to have all those limits thrown out, to realize your love is inexhaustible.

Uma Thurman

Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them.

Uma Thurman

Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It’s so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan.

Uma Thurman

Even, today, when people tell me I’m beautiful, I do not believe a word of it.

Uma Thurman

Fun wouldn’t be the right word… it was the most difficult, challenging, physical, extraordinary stretch I’ve ever had to make, in all those wild regards.

Uma Thurman

I grew up in a mostly Buddhist environment.

Uma Thurman

I had to go to a mirror and look at it. I couldn’t picture myself in my own head. I had no image beyond a stick figure. I wasn’t a mean person as a kid, or dumb, and something has to be said to justify excluding you.

Uma Thurman

I spent the first fourteen years of my life convinced that my looks were hideous. Adolescence is painful for everyone, I know, but mine was plain weird.

Uma Thurman

I was an escapee of childhood. I always wanted to grow up.

Uma Thurman

I was not particularly bright, I wasn’t very athletic, I was a little too tall, odd, funny looking, I was just really weird as a kid.

Uma Thurman

I would love to do something like Austin Powers to show off my comic timing.

Uma Thurman

I’m very happy at home. I love to just hang out with my daughter, I love to work in my garden. I’m not a gaping hole of need.

Uma Thurman

It is better to have a relationship with someone who cheats on you than with someone who does not flush the toilet.

Uma Thurman

It’s hard sometimes if you think a character should look a certain way and you’re being pushed to do it differently. I’ve had fights over that. That’s why it’s so important that you work with good people.

Uma Thurman

Modeling is basically ‘Buy more stuff! Don’t you want some more stuff? It will make you look ten years younger and men will like you!’ If I’d wanted to be a salesperson, I would have got a job selling.

Uma Thurman

Tall, sandy blonde, with sort of blue eyes, skinny in places, fat in others. An average gal.

Uma Thurman

We never left a set until we’d trashed it.

Uma Thurman

When asked if I consider myself Buddhist, the answer is, Not really. But it’s more my religion than any other because I was brought up with it in an intellectual and spiritual environment. I don’t practice or preach it, however.

Uma Thurman