The Times – December 8, 2007

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Eighteen years with Uma Thurman

By Sandy Cohen
Source: The Times

British film director Mike Figgis first met and photographed Uma Thurman when she was 18. Now, after years of friendship, they recreate that session, and Figgis shares his scrapbook of those meetings and conversations as they discuss innocence, experience, Hollywood and love

MIKE: What do you actually do, what’s your job?

UMA: I meet people who write stories about people, either honest stories, or comedies or things to amuse, tickle or scare. If I think I understand what they mean, I dedicate myself to playing one of the characters in their story. I learn their lines, I talk to them, I try to get to know them. I do this also with the person who is the director, who is going to visually present the material, in some style or fashion which I need to somehow or another understand in order to help him fully express his vision. I help others feel the writer’s story, through my heart and whichever way I can interpret their imagination – with the help of the director. Does that sound crazy?

MIKE: No, we’re getting there, because it’s very hard to define. Is it a truth or is it a lie, what you do?

UMA: When it feels like lying it feels bad, so when it feels good, it feels truthful… but it’s not real. So what’s the difference between realness and truth?

MIKE: And the fact that it’s not real, is that an attractive idea to you in the first place?

UMA: But it sort of is real to me. When I have a beautiful day and when I’m working with writing that I adore, it feels like it belongs to me, I feel like a songbird, I sing the music of the writer and the director, a combination of the two – it feels more alive than anything else, it feels alive.

MIKE: Is that why you do it?

UMA: Yes… that’s the thrilling part. That’s the part that makes all the other difficult things feel worthwhile. A great storyteller is truly remarkable. There is something very old school about a great storyteller being able to start from the beginning and take it all the way through. I think more and more people like to sit in the cinema sharing an experience, even with people that they’re not technically with. It’s bonding. That’s what keeps me out of the cinema – I so much crave personal communication that you know… I’d just rather sit with you.

MIKE: I get angry and upset in the cinema because everyone is eating and talking and going to the bathroom.

UMA: It’s television behaviour in the cinema. John Malkovich told a funny story of going to see a movie in Times Square some years ago. I guess it’s your classic women in prison, vendetta movie, there’s the nasty thug in the jail who killed the sister, so the other sister goes in… and finally of course revenge is achieved and the woman in front of John says to her friend, “Come on, the bitch is dead, let’s go home!” It just cracked me up.

MIKE: We’ve known each other for half your life. You were 18 when I met you, you had already made a few films.

UMA: I was on my fourth film – isn’t that shocking? I always used to say I wasn’t a child actor.

MIKE: We used to spend quite a lot of time together and talk about things…

UMA: You were very nice to me. You were a good friend, Mike.

MIKE: I remember you really struggled sometimes to find a balance. I think you felt like you were being abused sometimes.

UMA: I was terrified all the time.

MIKE: Terrified of what people seemed to want?

UMA: I was terrified of making mistakes and I was aware that it was a very, very slippery slope for a young person in my position.

MIKE: It seemed like you were often quite traumatised.

UMA: You tend to meet the roughest, the least helpful people in the beginning. That time before you have any kind of reputation is when you tend to meet some of the people as desperate as yourself.

MIKE: Did you find the industry very chauvinistic – how did you deal with it?

UMA: I grew up with three brothers, so I grew up fighting, playing, but they’re my best friends, I trusted them completely, so in a certain way I think I had a lack of understanding of men at the time. That’s just like any girl, though, suddenly realising that the people around her see her as a woman, not a girl. My father’s a self-created human being. He also had a very independent life, forged forward on his own steam early on. I felt scared to wait, to be supported, to be a child, to not somehow come up with an angle about how I was going take care of myself. I think I am that kind of person that if I know I have to leave, it almost becomes painful to stay. As soon as you know that it’s not going to last, you might as well go.

MIKE: So in a way you were making plans?

UMA: In a way I was just trying to leap forward, and not wait until I was pushed. I got a few modelling jobs.

MIKE: Did you mind modelling?

UMA: I did mind it sometimes. It was never anything but a transitional place, but I did make just enough money to pay a small rent, go to acting class. I did make just enough money to justify it.

MIKE: Henry & June. I remember you had a tough time making the film.

UMA: It’s a really good film. I actually saw it in a hotel recently, never watched it at the time. I was so proud of the work I did, even though Philip Kaufman and I didn’t see eye to eye… of course we were completely different creatures. He the mature, older man and me the 19-year-old girl struggling to learn her craft, but also trying to be truthful. When I saw it I was very proud of the performance because the conflict between us produced a hybrid of something quite interesting – a young girl imagining an adult woman’s heartbroken, sexually exploited world.

MIKE: …. Mad Dog and Glory.

UMA: One of my favourite movies. Probably the most wonderful experience I ever had. Robert De Niro was unbelievably giving to me in that movie.

MIKE: You still love acting?

UMA: I do still love it.

MIKE: Did having children change everything for you?

UMA: Absolutely. It changed everything in a good way. Taking care of someone else is such a pleasure, it’s such a sweet relief and the way you love them, it’s such a gift to love that way, to feel that you can love that way. You owe them everything for just letting you live any section of your life loving like that. There is no greater gift.

MIKE: Did you have a period where you didn’t really want to act?

UMA: Yes, I had a period or two where I thought I wasn’t able to get parts that weren’t going to be stimulating or creative and why wasn’t I getting an education and doing something, then I would get nudged along by life and then something else would happen and I wouldn’t do it.

MIKE: The films with Quentin… in terms of your attitude there was a change, a good one.

UMA: When we did Pulp Fiction together that was a period where I was really questioning whether acting – forget about whether I was going to be able to do it or whether I could get work – was actually something emotional I couldn’t handle, the whole structure, the whole shebang. I was very lost, unexcited, hurt, mixed up. Pulp Fiction was a great experience that way, because he said as a point that he wanted me to have such a great experience and feel good and enjoy something that he thought I was very good at.

MIKE: And he has an extraordinary energy, hasn’t he?

UMA: Yes. He has. Unique. Beyond enthusiasm. He was very sweet like that. I called him at one point, before we did Kill Bill, and I said I should just stop, quit. He was very sweet to me because he said, you can’t, we need you. And the very idea that anyone would say that is very, very lovely.