Uma Thurman Biography

Uma Thurman
Biography

Birth Name
Uma Karuna Thurman
Date of birth (location)
29 April 1970
Boston, Massachusetts, USA

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This daughter of a Columbia University professor and a former model-turned-psychotherapist is named after a Hindu goddess. Tall, sylph-like and solemn-eyed, Uma Thurman moved to NYC at age 16 and like her mother, began her career as a Click model, posing for numerous magazines. The blonde beauty segued to acting in 1987 with the independent feature "Kiss Daddy Good Night", as a young seductress who entices men only to rob them. Thurman received wide attention as the perfectly buxom, virginal victim of John Malkovich's seduction in Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons" (1998) before furthering her visibility as the Goddess of Love in Terry Gilliam's madcap opus "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1989).

      Thurman's powerful performance as June, the controlling wife of Henry Miller in Philip Kaufman's "Henry and June" (1990), revealed her to be an actress with considerable depth and ability. She turned in another strong performance as a blind woman targeted by a serial killer in Bruce Robinson's dark "Jennifer 8" (1992) and played an indentured servant to cop Robert De Niro and gangster Bill Murray in the unusual gangster romance "Mad Dog and Glory" (1993). Gus Van Sant's lumbering "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (1994), a long-awaited but unsatisfying adaptation of the popular Tom Robbins novel, virtually wasted the actress in the leading role of hitchhiker Sissy Hankshaw. But these roles were merely warm-ups for her strong turn as a drug addicted gangster's wife in Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed "Pulp Fiction" (1994). After engaging in a twist with co-star John Travolta, her character overdoses and in a truly shocking and disturbing scene, Travolta is forced to plunge a needle in her chest. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

      While Thurman garnered praise for her turn as a young coquette flirting with Edward Fox in John Irving's "A Month by the Lake" (1995), the film stumbled at the box office. She fared slightly better in Ted Demme's ensemble drama "Beautiful Girls" (1996), as an outsider visiting a small town. Thurman next played against type as a less than intellectual blonde helping friend Janeane Garofalo win a handsome beau in the comedy "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" (1996). Shifting gears, she offered a scene-stealing turn as villainess Poison Ivy to George Clooney's Dark Knight in "Batman & Robin" (1997). Thurman then returned to a more conventional role as the upright, somewhat frosty and passive worker in a futuristic space program who is romanced by a co-worker in the futuristic thriller "Gattaca" (also 1997). She followed with a highly-praised performance as Fantine in Bille August's 1998 remake of "Les Miserables" before teaming with Ralph Fiennes as Emma Peel to his John Steed in a big screen version of the hit 60s TV show "The Avengers" (also 1998).

      There was a noticable slowing down of Thurman's career as she settled into her new role as wife and mother. However, she did find time to take roles which appealed to her. She was in Woody Allen's "The Sweet and the Lowdown" in 1999 and her husband's film "Chelsea Walls" in 2001. In 2002, she received positive reviews for her role in the HBO film "Hysterical Blindness." Thurman played successfully against type as a desperately insecure working-class girl from New Jersey who, along with her best friend from high school (Juliette Lewis), spends her nights patrolling the local bar for love and some kind of direction.

In 2003, she starred in Quentin Tarantino's epic Kill Bill as a vengeful sword slashing assassin. The actress will also join Ben Affleck in the sci-fi thriller Paycheck. In 1990, she married British actor Gary Oldman, though they divorced in 1992.
In 1998, she married Gattaca co-star Ethan Hawke, and in the same year they welcomed their first child, Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke, a daughter. In 2001, the couple had a son, Roan.