by Paul Fischer
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Uma ThurmanThere are three ironclad facts about actress Uma Thurman. She is incredibly talented. She is incredibly attractive. She is incredibly intelligent and well spoken and, at the time of this interview (prior to the releases of Les Miserables and The Avengers), Uma was belly dragging pregnant, by Gattaca co-star and love of her life Ethan Hawke. As radiant as she looks in person, Uma deliberately looks like hell in the Les Misérables title role of Fantine, the out of wedlock mother who is forced into prostitution and into the life of fugitive Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson). Director Bille August's adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic was as good a place as any to begin our chat with Uma, so we did... |
More StarTalk with the stars of Les Miserables: |
CrankyCritic: What was the interest in doing the part of Fantine?
Thurman: It's a great part. I've always wanted to work with Bille
August. I've been after him for a long time in my mind as one of the directors
that I thought was really artistic and special. I try to work with those
people. I try to get them to hire me. He offered me this part and I read
it and I kind of felt that I had some insight into it. I felt that it
was a beautiful character and a beautiful person who had a legitimate
and poignant dramatic historical experience. I related to it. I've been
sort of on this journey this last couple of years. No one thought I could
do comedy and I sort of decided I was going to so I snuck into doing comedic
work and got sort of stuck doing it the last three or four years. In a
way I'd gotten away from where I started, with more straight dramatic
and I was relieved to go back to it. It was like going home. Very satisfying.
CrankyCritic:
Had you seen the musical?
Thurman: No. I'm not a big musical fan, I have to admit. I love
show tunes but I never for some reason bring myself to going out to watch
the musicals. No one invites me. I knew the music. I liked it.
CrankyCritic:
Sexuality is very up front in most of the characters you play but Fantine
is quite a departure.
Thurman: I don't think so. I think Fantine's sexuality is as much
an issue in her lifestyle as any character I've ever played if not more
so. When Victor Hugo wrote the novel, it was one of the first big indictments
of the societal treatment of women. I think that in a way she's a little
bit provocateur of things to come. She's not just a victim who accepts
her fate and gets knocked around and feels miserable about it. There's
something strong and stubborn in that character that probably brought
trouble down on her. She doesn't feel she was wrong for falling in love.
She doesn't think that her child is a worthless filthy bastard. She doesn't
fully buy into the party line that suppresses her and it's somehow that
stubbornness, that independence of mind that I think brings down such
hard punishment on her, socially. If she were just shriveled up in the
corner, sort of, in that way it might not be so dramatic.
CrankyCritic:
The last couple of roles you've done all seem to be based on classic of
each genres. The Avengers is classic television. Batman
is classic comic book. We all went through "Les Misérables"
in college...
Thurman: Or rather your read the Cliff Notes [laughs]
CrankyCritic:
You got me. Do big stories like this, now that you're known, get in the
way of making small movies like The Truth about Cats and Dogs?
Thurman: I'm so contrary that now I'll go find one [laughs]. No,
I don't think so no really. I'm compelled to do the opposite of the thing
I did last time. Now I'm having a baby so I'm not doing anything. I wish
there was a whole salad bowl of opportunities that I could just flip through
and always pick the best of the best. It's not really the truth. You're
always reacting to something in your career. I don't think anything will
keep me from making small movies if the movie industry keeps making small
movies. Even the small independent movie companies don't want to make
small movies. Not even with me. They want a huge blockbuster star before
they even go ahead.
CrankyCritic:
When you finish a movie is it easy to put all the characters away or do
they come back to you every once in a while and you go "I liked doing
that a lot"?
Thurman: Usually I'm very good at letting things go. In general
I think it's a healthy thing to let it go.
CrankyCritic:
So it doesn't bother you that old fans will compare different roles against
each other as to which was better looking or hotter...
Thurman: Excuse me, I'll be very vulgar. That's like asking me
if I mind that some magazine thing is used as a masturbation article by
some high school senior. [laughing] I don't want to have anything to do
with it. It's totally creepy. Give me a break. I don't mean to tease you
there but what am I supposed to do if some guy says "she's really
hot now" or "she's a real dog in that one" or "oo
I love watching the blood on her face in Pulp Fiction" People
are sick and people are healthy. We make this stuff so that people can
react to it so what are you gonna do about that? Y'know?? Really.
CrankyCritic:
Other actresses say that they don't object to doing nudity but they do
object that it becomes blown out of proportion...
Thurman: Particularly in this country. I started out healthily
indifferent and artistic about it, y'know, certainly not interested in
sexploitation movies, even if they looked like blockbusters. [Laughing]
I never was. Artistically, it's a real struggle because you don't want
to be like some stupid wimpy conformist who's going to be just as puritanical
and obnoxious as the people who you feel criticize it by capitulating.
It's complicated. What's appropriate is appropriate if the spirit of the
entire film is the right spirit. If you're just doing a movie where you
might think it's artistically good to do a scene where you perhaps could
be nude but you feel exploited by the studio in an unpleasant manner;
that some guys on the Internet will go "let's go she's nude in this
one!". You know that's really gross. Who wants to be a part of that?
[laughing]. Hideous, y'know?
I remember watching this movie
with Mel Gibson in some theater in midtown New York and they started having
the obligatory "now they have sex" intro, and all these people
in the audience, this row of guys in front of me were screaming at the
screen. I was truly flabbergasted. We all have all these discussions about
what's artistic and what's not and here's the bottom line [laughing],
a bunch of goons in a theater screaming like a football game. Some people
think it's TV 'cuz they watch so much TV they think they're talking to
the television set. It's become so interactive. What do you do?
CrankyCritic:
What do you do after that kind of experience?
Thurman: You get kind of turned off. It's artistic justification
that you have to feel. In Les Miserables there's a scene with the
landlord where Fantine exposes herself and I said to Bille I didn't want
to be coy and cheap about it. Just as much as I hate movies where you
see someone who's supposed to be dying or just sexually assaulted and
they're in a brand new pair of white panties and a really prissy little
lacy bra -- you kind of go what's wrong with this picture? It's too coy
and it becomes obnoxious. It becomes obviously about the actress and not
about the piece. There's always a balance that can't be found.
CrankyCritic:
Which brings us to your next film The Avengers.
Thurman: Yes.
CrankyCritic:
Does it have a social message, too?
Thurman: [laughing] No. I thought it would be a kick to do. I'd
never made a movie like that. I have this kind of compulsive need to try
to try out every genre and style of film that there is so that maybe at
some point I can say I'm grown up enough to decide what kind of career
I want. The Avengers is popcorn. It's squeaky clean. It's got a
little wink and nudge; the outfits are sort of nonchalantly skin tight...
CrankyCritic:
You knew the Emma Peel suit had to be there...
Thurman: Yeah. I like skin tight black leather [laughs].
CrankyCritic:
Did you like working with Ralph Fiennes?
Thurman: Ralph was good. Neither of us were doing what we'd normally
do. It's very camp and tongue in cheek kind of relationship in the movie.
It's very sort of Noel Coward sort of... banter, in between very surreal
action sequences. It was nice. He's a very sweet person.
CrankyCritic:
Do Steed and Peel kiss?
Thurman: I'm not telling...
CrankyCritic:
Motherhood is fast approaching for you. Are you doing anything special
to get ready for the baby?
Thurman: Every day is special to me.
CrankyCritic:
No special exercise classes...
Thurman: No, I'm not doing much to preserve my vanity. I'm just
getting fat the good old fashioned way.
CrankyCritic:
Will motherhood make a big difference in terms of your career?
Thurman: I don't have anything planned and I don't want to, so
I can see what'll happen. Hopefully motherhood will change something...
Cranky would like to interrupt to point out that Uma is being very self-deprecating at this point. We're both laughing hysterically]...
Thurman: I won't continue to be just as selfish and obnoxious and at work I'll be a terrible mother and all those horrible things. [deep breath and a big smile]. I'm sure it will change. I'm looking forward to it.