The genre Uma Thurman avoided like the plague for 20 years: “I did other stuff”
It’s important not to box yourself into any one genre or character archetype, and as an actor, Uma Thurman was hesitant about exactly this when she appeared in Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino’s hit action double bill, which saw her play the courageous Beatrix Kiddo, seeking revenge following a major betrayal.
Left for dead while pregnant, Beatrix, or The Bride as she is also known, escapes from hospital in her Pussy Wagon, hitting up the former members of the Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad with bloodlust on her mind and the desire to kill. She fights, she removes eyes, she slices off the top of Lucy Liu’s head, all the while proving why you should never mess with Beatrix Kiddo.
Thurman received significant praise for her role in Vol 1 and Vol 2, with the role arguably the one she will always cherish the most. She helped to create the character with Tarantino, her experience as the mother of young children inspiring the importance of Beatrix’s daughter in the film. The actor could certainly relate to elements of her character (even though she hasn’t ever assassinated someone, of course), and her clear love of the part helped her embody such a distinctive protagonist with ease.
The shoot might have been difficult at times, the worst of it being a car crash that was the result of the director’s insistence that Thurman do a tricky stunt on her own, but the movie was something to be proud of. Yet, in the aftermath of her success, she was hesitant to do more roles of a similar variety, not like she’d done many of the ilk before, but actively opting for completely different genres, as she really didn’t want to be known as an action hero.
So, she made the choice to venture into new territory, starting with a voice role for the English dub of the animated Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind before taking on a series of comedies, romantic films, crime capers, and psychological dramas, and even appearing in the controversial erotic film Nymphomaniac by Lars von Trier as a harried wife and mother being walked out on. She did everything to ensure that she wasn’t just the action star who wore the Bruce Lee-inspired yellow jumpsuit, showing off her range and taste for variety.
Talking to Jimmy Fallon, Thurman revealed, “I never really followed Kill Bill up with action because I didn’t kind of want to be in a whole bunch of B action movies. When you do Kill Bill, you never stop hearing about, you know, it’s like, ‘Oh, got to be very careful about what I do next’. So I did other stuff.”
Thus, for over 20 years, Thurman has avoided the genre, although she opted to return with 2025’s The Old Guard 2 alongside Charlize Theron, which flopped with critics, perhaps an indication that she should’ve stayed away longer. While she thought “it was such a unique kind of action movie. It had such character and depth, and it was really quite moving”, few audiences appeared to agree with that assessment.
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