How Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman came up with 'Kill Bill'

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Quentin Tarantino discusses the beauty of “goddess” Uma Thurman

Fri 29 April 2022 5:00, UK

Quentin Tarantino is a director who isn’t shy about taking creative licence from the history of cinema, borrowing and seeking inspiration from filmmakers from across the world, from Segio Leone to Akira Kurosawa. Each of his films rely on this pastiche, from Reservoir Dogs all the way to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, though there may not be a bigger appropriator than 2003s Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

A samurai movie born from the filmmaker’s love of everything from Kurosawa to Toshiya Fujita to spaghetti westerns, Kill Bill plays out like a sugar rush, ditching a complex narrative in favour of blood, guts and decapitation. Starring Uma Thurman in her most famous starring role as the Bride, the story follows her campaign of revenge against the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and her sinister former boss, Bill.

Having previously starred in Tarantino’s breakthrough movie and Palme d’Or winner, Pulp Fiction, Thurman became a favourite of the filmmaker, casting her as the star of the only film series he has ever put together.

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Talking to Time about the brilliance of the film star, Tarantino exclaimed: “People talk about beautiful actresses like Cameron Diaz…she’s a beautiful girl. But I went to high school with three girls who look like Cameron Diaz. Uma Thurman is a different species”. Going on to gush over Thurman’s beauty and acting skills, he states, “She’s up there with [Greta] Garbo and [Marlene] Dietrich in goddess territory”.

Speaking about her time working with the filmmaker, Thurman further added, “He is brilliant, but my job was to take this character out of his wildly creative, seemingly improvisational world and make her human. If the movie was going to be more than a cartoon, it was up to me”.

Originally devised between Thurman and Tarantino on the set of Pulp Fiction, the two creatives kept going back and forth at the time about what the film would be about, who it would follow and how it would be stylised. Eventually, Tarantino got around to writing the project up, though by the time he had, Thurman had become pregnant with her son Roan, leaving the project in limbo in the early 21st century.

Asked in the same interview if he ever considered replacing the esteemed actor with someone else to save time and money in the production of the film, the filmmaker replied in an explosive idiosyncratic manner. “Would Sergio Leone have replaced Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars? Would von Sternberg have replaced Dietrich in Morocco?” he exclaimed, adding, “I knew how good she was going to be in this movie, so we waited”. Thanks to Tarantino’s patience, audiences were given one of the filmmaker’s very best movies, with a large amount of praise directed towards Thurman who commanded the screen with her performance.

What’s more, audiences may have not seen the back of the Bride, with Tarnatino telling Andy Cohen on Sirius XM Radio in October 2021, “The Bride has fought long and hard. Now, I have an idea that actually could be interesting. I wouldn’t do it for a little bit, though. It would be like at least three years from now, or something like that”.

Stoking the rumour mill, Tarantino finally added “look it’s definitely in the cards,” in a shocking mic-drop, with the director clearly all-too ready to team up once more with his cinematic ‘goddess’.