Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a highly unorthodox and internationally-minded family. Her mother, Nena Thurman, was a fashion model and socialite, and her father, Robert Thurman, was a professor and academic who is one of the nation's foremost Buddhist scholars. Uma's mother was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to a German father and a Swedish mother, while her father had English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry.
Uma grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, where her father worked at Amherst College. She and her siblings all have names deriving from Buddhist mythology, and Middle American behavior was little understood, much less pursued. As a child, Uma towered over everyone else in class, and her famously large feet would soon sprout to size 11 - and even beyond that.
The family constantly relocated, making Uma perpetually the new kid in class. This led to an exceptionally awkward, self-conscious, lonely, and alienated childhood. Uma enjoyed making believe she was someone other than herself, and she thrived at acting in school plays - her sole successful extracurricular activity.
This interest, and her lanky frame, perfect for modeling, led Uma to New York City for high school and modeling work. She soon landed acting roles, starting with a few formulaic and forgettable Hollywood products, but immediately followed by Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988).
Uma continued to be offered good roles in Hollywood pictures into the early '90s, the least commercially successful but probably best-known of which was her smoldering, astonishingly-adult performance as June, Henry Miller's wife, in Henry & June (1990). After a celebrated start, Uma's career stalled in the early '90s with movies such as the mediocre Mad Dog and Glory (1993).
Uma bounced back with a brilliant performance as Mia Wallace, that most unorthodox of all gangster's molls, in Quentin Tarantino's lauded, hugely successful Pulp Fiction (1994),a role for which Uma received an Academy Award nomination. Since then, Uma has had periods of flirting with roles in arty independents such as A Month by the Lake (1995),and supporting roles in which she has lent some glamorous presence to a mixed batch of movies, such as Beautiful Girls (1996) and The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996).
Uma returned to smaller films after playing the villainess Poison Ivy in the reviled Joel Schumacher effort Batman & Robin (1997) and Emma Peel in a remake of The Avengers (1998). She worked with Woody Allen and Sean Penn on Sweet and Lowdown (1999),and starred in Richard Linklater's drama Tape (2001) opposite Ethan Hawke.
Uma also won a Golden Globe award for her turn in the made-for-television film Hysterical Blindness (2002),directed by Mira Nair. A return to the mainstream spotlight came when Uma re-teamed with Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003),a revenge flick the two had dreamed up on the set of Pulp Fiction (1994). She also turned up in the John Woo cautioner Paycheck (2003) that same year.
Uma's marriage to Ethan Hawke, her co-star in the offbeat futuristic thriller Gattaca (1997),ended in divorce in 2004. She had two children, Levon and Maya, with Hawke.
