From An Acquired Taste
Very few of us get to fulfill the when-I-grow-up fantasies of our childhood. Astronaut, pilot, cowgirl, firefighter -- those baby ambitions usually pass away. Uma Thurman is one of the lucky ones. As a girl, she wanted to be an actress. Her mother, who knew a thing or two about show business, told her to pick something more realistic. But Uma held on -- and held out. And by age 16, she'd landed her first big-screen role.Thirty films and 20 years later, Thurman, 36, has realized her career dream -- and then some. In movies like Gattaca, Pulp Fiction and The Avengers, Thurman has wielded her talent and icy good looks to great effect. But her personal life of late has hardly been smooth. She's still nursing the wounds from her 2004 divorce from second husband, Ethan Hawke, who is rumored to have been unfaithful while he was away on a film project. The couple have two young children, Maya, 8, and Levon, 4. Thurman says her priority is her daughter and son now, so for the past few years she has only chosen roles that allow her to shoot in New York, where the family lives.
RD spent a late-day lunch talking to Thurman on the eve of the release of her upcoming comedy, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. She talks to us about her life, her work and her future.
RD: How's it going since the divorce?
Thurman: Why am I still feeling this? Because it leaches out of you slowly. One always wishes it would be faster. Wouldn't we all like to just have one big, stupid cry like they do in the movies, and then it's over?
RD: What ways do you make your kids feel safe in the wake of the divorce?
Thurman: First, do no harm. And then try to build a positive outlook and a sense of wholeness. They're doing well. They're remarkable little people. Of course I think they're stunning, extraordinary human beings.
RD: Are you close to your parents and your three brothers?
Thurman: Oh, yeah. Very. They're great. It's really wonderful. There are so many ebbs and flows in life, but when you're raising small children, your family means everything.
RD: You have an interesting family.
Thurman: But I had a very traditional background as well. My parents are neat people. I'm lucky to have been raised in the most beautiful place -- Amherst, Massachusetts, state of my heart. I'm more patriotic to Massachusetts than to almost any place.
RD: Your mother was a model. Your father, a former Tibetan Buddhist monk, teaches at Columbia University.
Thurman: Because of him, I often get asked if I'm a Buddhist. I always say no, because I have such respect for the rigor of being a practicing religious person. I'm an actress and mom, and I probably don't have enough of an active spiritual life. And I don't know why people run around calling themselves by the names of religions when they don't actually practice them.
RD: How did your mom influence you?
Thurman: She's a very strongly independent person. She went off to make her future at a really young age. At around 15, she went from Stockholm to England. Imagine that in about 1950.
RD: She's now a psychotherapist, right?
Thurman: She never actually formally practiced. She was a stay-at-home mom who raised four children with no help, which is a lot of work. But she went back to school in her early 40s and got a degree.
RD: You're the beautiful daughter of a model. Yet you've said many times that you were uncomfortable with your looks when you were younger.
Thurman: My mother always made it very clear to me that, whatever you look like now, you're going to look worse later. Don't get too attached to your beauty because it's not yours to keep. Don't go around thinking that it's some big bonus and that you can count on it. And I was not classically attractive. I've always been sort of an acquired taste.
Thrilling
RD: Are you surprised that you stuck with your plan to become an actress?Thurman: It is a surprise. I remember being, like, 10, and my mother asking me what I wanted to do. When I said I want to be an actress, she said, "Everybody does. Say something else. You've been watching too much TV." Today, it's sort of disturbing when a teenager says she wants to be an actress. It is such an unlikely thing to be able to do -- not because you can't be good at it, but just because of what it takes to survive: luck, talent, holding your head in a certain way, endurance. You have to be able to take insults really well. And how obnoxious will you become if you are treated nicely and receive flattery?
RD: What's it like being a single mother, given your career?
Thurman: I don't get to stay home sick. My job is very unforgiving in that regard. And I haven't entirely figured out how to deal with it. I've avoided conflict by limiting my options. And I'm really grateful that I found things I could do that were here in New York.
RD: Tell us about your role in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
Thurman: I play a woman who found a meteor as a child and gained superpowers. But all she wants to do is find a nice guy and settle down. Unfortunately, her own neuroses are so immense that she suffocates anyone who comes close to her -- men run for the hills. Then she feels the loss and rejection that anybody naturally feels, but in her case she expresses it with out-of-control rage. Super-rage.
RD: Was it a fun role to play?
Thurman: It was really fun to play a character who actually vents. So many women don't vent. We are trained to be gracious and hold our tongues. But this character flips out and has full-on tantrums. Think of a humiliating experience you've had, when all you did was sit there quietly and suck it up. For years, every time you'd think of it, you'd flinch. You ask, Why didn't I just go bananas and take a baseball bat and smash that person over the head?
RD: You've taken on some very physical roles. On the set of The Producers, I saw you slide across this desk...
Thurman: Over and over. One day I hit my hip on the desk so hard I fell to the ground. Once you hurt yourself, you begin to kind of preemptively prepare. Your judgment starts to go wild because your body's afraid.
RD: Just like in life.
Thurman: Right. But we came back another day, and I did one perfect move. And that's in the movie.
RD: In one very memorable scene in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, you were buried alive.
Thurman: That was awful. It went on for weeks. Many different sets were built to create different moments of it. Part of it was shot at night on location. Part of it was shot in studio.
RD: How do you psych yourself up for that kind of thing?
Thurman: The purest relationship I have ever had, aside from with my children, is with my work. Whatever you give it, it gives you back double. That's an unusual kind of relationship. It's thrilling to act. It's thrilling to reach for things and risk humiliation. It's taken me a long time to learn to accept the risks and just be willing to try it over and over again.
RD: You once said you don't take risks, that risks take you.
Thurman: Life sweeps you up. Some people resist a lot. I probably haven't resisted very much.
RD: You've been at this for 20 years. Do you ever get tired of it?
Thurman: I've always approached work as a worker. Whatever it takes -- endurance, discipline, practice, repetition, courage, working through it -- I just have always been willing to pull myself up and try again. I've never taken success for granted.
RD: That's a great outlook.
Thurman: Well, at the same time, the price you pay for that attitude is that you don't get to enjoy the highs. There will be some incredibly spectacular moment and you wish to God you could just celebrate it. But you can't, because some other thing has just ground you right down to the core.
RD: You have said, "You play, you pay," regarding celebrities and the press. So if you're famous, you're fair game?
Thurman: I think that you are game. There are many incredible privileges that go with being famous. Being beat up by the media is nothing compared to, say, being beat up by your union if you're a coal miner.
RD: What kinds of things would you do if you had a lot of spare time?
Thurman: I love, love, love to travel, to explore the world, but I never can. I'd like to see more theater, go to more shows. I'd try to get my French back. My list is literally as long as my leg.
RD: Which is very, very long.
Thurman: Uh-huh. And it's written in small print.