Deseret News – January 2, 2004

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Thurman lives for acting

By Luaine Lee Scripps Howard News Service
Source: Deseret News

She may be named after a Hindu goddess, but actress Uma Thurman insists she’s not into metaphysical things. Even so, she finds acting a way of transcending herself.

“Sometimes it’s like channeling,” she says. “You lose yourself, yet you’re expressing. It’s better than life. It’s like living, but it’s better than life ’cause you’re not really responsible. You’re free to feel whatever you feel at no cost. It’s like living without any cost.”

In everyday life, you have to be more circumspect, she thinks.

“If you break down crying and tell someone lots of weird feelings you’re having, you could change that relationship forever. . . . You could lose that friend. They might think you’re crazy. But as an actor, you can free up so many things similar to that, and nobody thinks you’re crazy. You’re not punished for it. And you don’t lose any friends, and you didn’t treat anyone inappropriately. I guess it has a therapeutic quality.”

She celebrates that therapeutic quality in her latest film, “Paycheck,” in which she plays a feisty former love of Ben Affleck, an engineer who has submitted to three years of voluntary amnesia as part of high-tech R&D. It’s up to Thurman to help him breach the vacant gap and to aid him when things go sour.

Acting can be a celebration of life, she says. “It has a tremendous love of mankind in it. It’s about reaching out and empathizing and trying to connect with people and communicate. Those are the things I like about it.”

She’s been liking it for much of her life. Ever since she was discovered at 15, Thurman has determined to press her way into show business. That wasn’t easy, especially for a confused adolescent. “As a teenager you romanticize sadness,” she says.

“You think that makes you deep, you think it makes you real, you think it makes you cool. You think it makes you somehow more grownup or alive or more important. Horrible point of view, but that is the teenage point of view. . . . I think I looked at the downside as the deeper side. I really don’t look at it like that anymore.”

In spite of hefty credits like “Pulp Fiction,” “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Mad Dog and Glory” and “Kill Bill,” there have been times when she wanted to quit, she admits.

“Because I felt like I wasn’t connecting. I was probably afraid I wasn’t going to get to do the things that would make it worth a life in the arts. I wouldn’t succeed to that level, and if I’m not going to get to that level, I have to have a meaningful life. All those doubtful thoughts about that.”

Thurman, 33, is divorced from actor Gary Oldman and now split from actor Ethan Hawke, with whom she has two kids, a boy, almost 2, and a girl, 5.

Coping with single motherhood and a demanding career is her biggest challenge, she says. “I’m always working on trying to be more organized. I’m not the best person in the organization department.”