iVillage Interview – 2006

Last Update:

7 Super Questions with Uma Thurman

By Lindsey Unterberger
Source: iVillage

The star dishes on sex, breakups and more

Uma Thurman may not be able to save New York City in one fell swoop like her My Super Ex-Girlfriend character, but the 36-year-old has her own set of superpowers. Although Jenny, aka G-Girl, falls hard for Matt (Luke Wilson), the first man who tries to rescue her, Uma doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who needs to be saved. Despite a brief marriage to Gary Oldman in the early ’90s and a highly publicized divorce from Ethan Hawke in 2004, which is still shrouded in rumors of adultery, Uma’s been looking like a lady in love lately. The lucky man? Hotelier Andre Balazs. The pair reportedly split in March 2006 but were photographed on a beach in Saint-Tropez several months later. With or without a man, however, the Kill Bill star is every bit as intelligent — and tall (she’s six-feet!) — as you’d imagine. We sat down with the star and found out how she handles breakups, what superpower she’d really like and more.

In the movie, you have several sex scenes with Luke Wilson in which you end up literally pushing the bed through the wall in the, uh, throws of passion. Tell us about your super sex scene.

I generally don’t find sex scenes that interesting in movies anymore. But this is funny. I mean can you think of a funnier sex scene in a movie? You’ve got to go almost overseas to get the humor back in sex, and I love seeing that in a mainstream, American movie. Like having some lightness — some humor.

Which one of G-Girl’s superpowers do you wish you could keep?

I’ve said flying about a million times today [while doing press for the movie], and then as I get teased about our love scenes, I’d say, “Well that’d be a good superpower!” I’d take that one — Super-sack. Be truly unforgettable. Frankly, it’s probably the most useful.

Since you probably aren’t going to throw a shark into your ex’s bedroom like Jenny does, how do you deal with breakups?

You just try to grow. Hopefully, when you’re not in a bad mood about things, you can think that all of your relationships happen for a reason, to teach you something or to give you something. And you come out of them as disappointed or as shocked as you may be — or fine with it — you need to figure out what it was about, and maybe what it was in you that stopped it from working. And some of those things are probably good things that you wouldn’t want to change just for someone else, and some of those things might be something you should look at.

Do you have any super breakup rituals?

I actually love to cook. Cooking is a great comfort to me. I’m a little bit antisocial and slightly shy when it comes to real life, so I usually hide and hang out in the kitchen. I entertain by feeding people. I cook tons of things — whatever I get my hands on.

Do you have any real-life superpowers?

I’m very disciplined. I’m very professional at work. I started doing this at 16, and now I’m 36; it’s my twentieth year making films. And so I feel like I’ve gotten psychologically and mentally into a really positive attitude about work, and that’s a good thing.

What do you consider some of your super achievements?

My children. My relationship with my family. I feel like I’ve had a very good, developing relationship — adult relationship — with my family. We’re quite close, and it’s nice. [I have] friendships kept for decades and decades, I’m proud of. I’m a very relationship-centered person. Not that I’d be proudest of [my relationships] per se, but that’s what means the most to me to have managed to do. I’m quite private, and I don’t have an extensive social life, but I have some friends who are very dear to me.

Who’s your personal superhero?

My daughter. [Editor's note: Uma has two children with ex-husband Ethan Hawke, daughter Maya Ray, 8, and son Roan, 4.] I admire her. She’s incredibly decent and noble and fair and gracious and kind and really very sweet.