Uma Thurman calls turning down Éowyn one of her worst decisions
Scouts spotted Uma Thurman playing Abigail in a school production of The Crucible, and she left school to act. By 24 she had an Oscar nomination for Pulp Fiction, and Quentin Tarantino put her in goddess territory alongside Garbo and Dietrich. Not every choice worked out, as she freely admits.
Thurman was born in Boston on April 29, 1970. Her father, Robert Thurman, is a scholar of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism who spent three years as an ordained monk, and her mother, Nena von Schlebrügge, was a fashion model born in Mexico City. She grew up mostly in Amherst, Massachusetts, with about two years in Almora in India, and has spoken openly about living with dyslexia. A 2004 biography describes a shy girl teased for her looks and unusual first name.
She began modelling at 15, landing British Vogue covers in December 1985 and May 1986, then moved to film with Kiss Daddy Goodnight in 1987. In Dangerous Liaisons she held her own opposite Glenn Close and John Malkovich, who found her poised well beyond her years. Henry and June, in 1990, became the first film given an NC-17 rating. Not everything landed: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues earned her a Golden Raspberry nomination.
Tarantino wanted her for Mia Wallace after a single meeting. Pulp Fiction grossed $213.9 million worldwide, and her black-wigged gangster's wife became one of the defining film characters of the decade. Rather than cash in, she avoided big-budget work for three years, then chose Gattaca with Ethan Hawke and, less happily, Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin, a $160 million production often ranked among the worst films made. Roger Ebert called her the best element of the 1998 Les Misérables.
After her daughter was born in 1998 she took smaller projects and declined the part of Éowyn in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, a refusal she now regrets. She won a Golden Globe for the HBO film Hysterical Blindness, which she also executive produced, and returned to Tarantino as the Bride in Kill Bill, earning a BAFTA nomination and two more Golden Globe nods.
Source: Uma Thurman
