Is there a career trajectory more tragic than Uma Thurman’s?

[quote] her career took a turn for the worst.

Oh dear.

OP, you forgot that stinker "Motherhood," from 2009.

On a budget of $10 million, it made less than $800,000 worldwide. Producers pre-sold pieces of the film to investors, insisting that they'd make their money back on a known star like Uma.

Yes I can't think of a more tragic career

Me too.

Some people just want to raise their kids, or decided Hollywood wasn't for them. Plus wasn't she fucked up physically after the accident on the Kill Bill set?

I thought she married that billionaire that spawned with Elle Macpherson? Why would ahe work?

Just rewatched Dangerous Liaisons where she is absolutely luminous. She and Keanu are so young and beautiful.

I loved her icy coolness in Gattaca.

[quote]I thought she married that billionaire that spawned with Elle Macpherson? Why would ahe work?

If that's the logic you're using, then why would she take jobs now that are meh at best.

She had not really had a lot of significant roles going in to 2015 when that weird plastic surgery controversy occured. While her face has since settled, she really has taken some iffy roles since.

Jennifer Lawrence’s career took a much harder fall.

^ Whatever happened with the Fappening? Do those pictures still exist on the internet or have they been scrubbed?

R9 Yes, every since Harvey Weinstein fell out of power...

R11 can you imagine the poor girl who finally decided to sleep with him for a career the week before he was arrested? Talk about tears of a clown.

[quote]Since then she’s managed to survive on a diet of shitty films and TV shows cancelled after one season.

Well, that and some fucking great drugs.

Leslie Howard

As far as my vote for at least one actor that had a more tragic end of their career.

That sentence just above sounds better if you are playing Glenn Millers music as you read.

After the divorce in 2005, Uma started in earnest her very jet set life, as she comes from Eurotrash, fashion, minor aristocracy, literati combined. She started moving in Paris London Côte d'Azur VERY monied circles and spent years with that fake billionaire Arpad Busson, who comes from the same milieu. During these years, Uma was dissipated and there were, some say, dependency challenges. This went on for years and kind of destroyed her momentum in big pictures. She wasn't all there creatively.

Any other questions?

R15 is Ethan Hawke

r15 Regarding her "dependency challenges", what was/is Uma's drug of choice?

I don't want to run blind items. My gossip comes from my few remaining jet set friends whose orbits intersected. I know my friends' drugs are coke, heroin, oxy, and booze. Take you pick. Arpad accused her, in COURT, of abusing benzos and booze. I have heard other drugs.....

She was a starlet, not an actress, and so she had a starlet's career. She actually made a lot of money, and she's married to a handsome man who also has a lot of money.

I'll save my sympathy for the Darfur orphan, thanks.

Far as I know, Uma is not married. Who are you referring to R19.

She also did that Broadway play in 2018, "The Parisian Woman." I think she could do some theater projects for validation since she doesn't need the money.

[quote]I'll save my sympathy for the Darfur orphan, thanks.

Fuck your "sympathy" and send me something to eat, asshole.

She has a small role in the Netflix series Imposters and I adore her in it. The series itself is entertaining too.

R8 That's the same look Drew Barrymore has been doing for a while now. Note to Uma and Drew: Mascara is your friend. You both look hideous like that.

I bet it really chaps her ass that Ethan is still happily married to their Nanny he cheated with.

She seemed to have a blast as the movie star who couldn't sing a note but was hired to star as Marilyn Monroe in a Broadway musical in SMASH. And she was very good.

She was well cast in Kill Bill, but most of her other performances have ranged from forgettable to cringeworthy. Plus she has stringy hair and a bugged out face. Not talented and weird looking.

I watched the series "Suspicion" on Apple+tv. She looked great.

I'd much rather just be rich without being an actress. The real money and power is behind the scenes in Hollywood. The actors and actresses are just the meat with variable shelf lives. Apparently hers was over. Glad she doesn't have to bother with all that acting nonsense.

Salma Hayek is married to one of the 3 richest men in the world and she works all the time.

She's got a new moving coming out with her daughter, Maya and Samuel L. Jackson. Looks good.

I don't know what y'all are smoking but Ethan was the meth head and loser in this equation. He was lucky to have that break from Marvel in Moon Night and also a hit in The Black Phone.

Both Uma and Ethan are good actors. I really doubt Uma is crying over Ethan anymore as he is a loser, and sucked the life out of her.

I used to see Ethan all of the time when I lived in Chelsea, NYC. He lives down on 21st between 8th and 9th in one of those beautiful townhomes. Oddly enough, Dylan McDermott lives on the exact some block some doors down in that apartment everyone questioned why such a major star would live in. I used to see him too. Both sexy guys. Ethan worked out at my gym and I remember being on the treadmill next to him running, getting to see his face in the mirror. Then he farted and I gagged. Nothing is worse than exercising and ingesting a hot stinky fart. You can't help but to breath it in, deeply. A bit of the bloom was off the rose after that.

I bet it was a special moment for both of you

I thought we were going to get a Kill Bill sequel with Zendaya as Vernita Greene’s grown-up daughter coming after the Bride.

Oscars for both of them!!

Not to derail the thread, but I had to share.

You know how when you're walking down the street and you see what could be a handsome guy in the distance and you avert your gaze until the last second as you pass each other? Well I do the same thing with bulges. I was walking down 9th ave to the Chelsea market and I saw what looked like a handsome guy walking in thin black exercise shorts walking up with some jolly floppage going on. I waited right until we past each other to check it out. Then I looked up and it was Dylan MCdermott. And I can tell when we saw each other he knew I was checking out his obvious junk. It was swinging. This added more fuel to the question as to why such a major star would buy a small walk-up, basically a crash pad, in one of the gayest neighborhoods in the world. He was very sexy, not just the way he looked but the way he carried himself. He came off as the kind of straight guy who is very comfortable with attention from gay men, to the point of almost enjoying it.

To bring it back around to the thread topic. The same thing happened with me and Uma Thurman, minus the junk. I was rounding 10th St. and 5th Ave and she was coming the opposite way. There was a group of people I was trying to get around and so was she, and we basically ran into each other. Pretty woman, sweet face, tall.

That's pretty good casting, r34. I'd love to watch that

R36, it wasn’t my idea. I read it online. But I’d love to see it too.

She turned 35

[quote]Earlier in her career, Uma Thurman starred in some of the greatest, most beloved films of all time.

I loved her in "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind."

R39 And don't forget her star turns in "Gigi" and "The Deer Hunter"

Kill Bill is a combination of awesome and also so long that Uma in that fucking yellow track suit makes me crazy because it is so godawful ugly and accentuates her lankiness for like 3 hours.

Maybe just maybe OP she has a nice life with her millions and doesn’t give a rats ass about what some anonymous troll has to say about her career and when she may choose to work (when she doesn’t have to.).

No - she's lined up to star in a TV revival of The Partridge Family.

[quote]Kill Bill is a combination of awesome and also so long that Uma in that fucking yellow track suit makes me crazy because it is so godawful ugly and accentuates her lankiness for like 3 hours.

Oh, but for anyone who recognized it, that yellow track suit was ICONIC. I’ll assume you know where it originated and I don’t mean to be patronizing, but for those unfamiliar, that was what Bruce Lee wore in his last film Game of Death. So when we saw the movie poster or the trailer and saw it for the first time, a lot of us gasped and instantly knew “THIS MOVIE IS FOR ME!” And they wisely changed the design to a zip up top and and made it more current and attractive than the very 70s version of Lee’s suit.

So count me as someone who LOVED seeing her tall lankiness in that absolutely iconic yellow track suit. It gave me chills! And she’ll be remembered for it more than he was, even though it was an homage to him.

Uma is good people.

They can't all be Bette & Joan.

OP has to be trolling. There are many, many entertainers with career trajectories far sadder than Uma.

[quote] Fuck your "sympathy" and send me something to eat, asshole.

You will die, peacefully, I have all the food!

She had beautiful tits in Dangerous Liaisons

OP She had a good run for a beauty who started out very young. What’s the tragedy?

R4 Me three!

Holy shit, Uma’s Swedish/German mom (who was a gorgeous Ford model) was briefly married to LSD lord Timothy Leary.

She did well for a long time, considering she wasn't a very good actress.

[quote]She did well for a long time, considering she wasn't a very good actress.

She was/is a VERY good actress. Nominated for Pulp Fiction but not Kill Bill was a travesty.

I wouldn’t totally count her out. Given the right role, she’d be a shoo-in for a lifetime achievement Oscar. Long career, well, respected, no drama.

And her kid Maya is one of the least annoying nepo babies around. She is extremely likable. I want to see her in more things. Maybe everything.

Both of her parents are great actors. The great acting apple didn’t fall far from the great acting tree.

Uma is a de Menil (old sophisticated money).

Larry Gagosian lives in a massive town home, Harkness Mansion, which he purchased from Uma's grand mother.

Uma isnt "euro trash" lol

One nomination. Tragic.

[quote]One nomination. Tragic.

I KNOW, right?? Why, I have EIGHT of those and I’ve won…um… The Alliance of Women’s Film Journalist award! For the “Most Egregious Age Difference Between The Leading Man and The Love Interest Award”…

I won’t be answering any further questions.

R34 That’s actually happening.

R57, I wish. Unless it’s Tarantino’s promised final film, I don’t think it’s happening.

I've never dreamed of fame. Seems like a curse.

I never realized the rapid descent of her career coincided with her 2005 divorce from Ethan Hawke. That was the last year in which she starred or co-starred in films that were commercially and/or critically successful.

"On a budget of $10 million, it made less than $800,000 worldwide. Producers pre-sold pieces of the film to investors, insisting that they'd make their money back on a known star like Uma."

Producers don't "insist" on anything. You make it sound like the foreign sales people pulled a fast one. And you're suggesting the movie lost $8.8 million. Wrong.

A movie like MOTHERHOOD can turn a profit. Or turn a profit for some. The world is carved into "territories". Some are individual countries, like Mexico, Russia, China, India, and then there's "the middle east" and blocks of countries. Distributors in those countries bid for the rights to the movie. Back then, DVD sales were strong so the bidding would be for theater rights, DVD rights (sales and rentals), video on demand, and cable TV. For smaller movies, cable tv used to be where the big money was--no theatrical release necessary.

So you make Motherhood for $10 million. Then distributors in Mexico say, Uma Thurman sells crazy amounts of DVD's here and they get the Mexican rights for 1.4 million. Then the Middle Eastern distributors pay $500,000. Then do you do that for the 20 or so major territories worldwide. If you stack up more than the 8.2 million, you win. And usually, you don't put the movie into production until you make enough pre-sales to know you are going to turn a profit--or come so close to the outlay that the risk is acceptable. Also, these worldwide buyers put up the money in advance. So you can turn a profit before the first day of filming.

These types of deals often impact box office with major studio movies too. To minimize risk, studios sometimes sell off some worldwide rights.

The $800k box office is irrelevant. If a distributor wants to put it in theaters in their country, pay for the advertising, and takes a loss, that's up to them. The ones who went straight to DVD and cable had no extra costs and probably turned nice profits.

So you've got the main financial entity that produces and sells the film and about 20 different distributors. Some might make money, some might lose money. But they know what they're doing when they pick up the rights to a movie. The Australian distributors of Motherhood didn't pay up like it was Kill Bill 3.

R61 But, to be clear, Motherhood did NOT turn a profit.

It was also a critical disaster, but I'm sure you've got some faux-insider insights on why critics are meaningless in rating a film's performance.

R61 very interesting devils advocate argument and r62 good retort.

Yes I finally got to type devil in a logical way. I inserted nun in the other thread. Yes. Curse complete.

I warned you not to fuck with me.

I'm watching her last series Suspicion. She looks good. Slim and not OVERLY plastic surgeried. But the beauty is Elyes Gabel who's ben banging around series for years. He's 40 now and we see a LOT of him in this series and he's RIPE.

Something similar came on NPR about 10 years ago. As R61 that no movie really loses money. It takes longer but it'll make the money back.

My cousin has been in the movie biz for years—writer/director of really bad, low budget films but mostly as AD on big films. He worked with Thurman on a movie—can’t remember which one but was a starring role. He said she was whacky as hell—even whacky by Hollywood standards but one of the kindest stars he ever worked with. Nuttier than a fruitcake but knew the names of all the crew and attended all their parties.

I always liked her performance in Hysterical Blindness, I have yet to find a channel streaming that movie, but both her and Lewis were incredibly believable in that. Their desperation is palpable.

Uma is playing the President and mother of one of the main characters in the upcoming gay romcom “Red, White & Royal Blue.”

Maybe she doesn't care about acting anymore.

Prefers doing her own laundry.

r66 Giant movies can lose money. Smaller ones tend to be greenlit with extreme sensitivity to what they can recoup. Unless there's a sugar daddy involved (a super rich investor who lacks Hollywood experience but is trying to get into the game and finances movies at costs others would refuse to because of the risk).

All movies have additional value as part of libraries which are bought and sold as commodities. Then those libraries or specific titles are rented to play on streamers, cable, and deals are made for physical release (back in the day, that would be VHS, DVD, who knows what future, if any there is in that).

Love your post r15

Wonder what’s it like to run in those circles. Is it all lounging by the pool, fancy dinners, buying expensive clothes, and drinking/drugging when you feel like it.

Her kids probably go to elite schools and ski in Switzerland

I remember Ethan said they parted ways because she was obsessed with being a Star and he wasn't focused on stardom. Funny how that went, he's now one of the most bankable stars and she is... who is she?

I heard from people who worked with her in the day that she was an entitled diva who drove everyone crazy with demands.

I thought they broke up because he was fucking the nanny when Uma got a little fat from birthing his kids.

So two different commenters heard two different things about her. She’s either friendly, or entitled. It’s almost like it’s all gossip and rumour…

It’s funny how Uma’s career has been in the shitter since her divorce, while Ethan went on to garner 3 Oscar nominations and he still appears in A-list material.

My goodness, yes, OP. So many...

Michael Jan Vincent, Oliver Reed, Tatum O'Neal, Amy Winehouse, Mira Sorvino, and Hillary Swank to name a few off the top of my head. There must be 100s or even 1000s of dimmed Hollywood stars who's trajectory is/was worse.

I lost my respect for Ethan when he was on Howard Stern’s show and he complained about his sex life with Uma. He said that after the birth of their child, her vagina had become too loose. What a thing to say about your wife.

That is gross.

If he wanted it tight, why did he push for butt sex?

Ooops. Whose, not who's.

All these posts and no one has mentioned her father??

Who cares. A scholar married to a model who birthed an actress.

No one’s mentioned she was Mrs. Gary Oldman at age 20.

I forgot about that R84.

[quote] It’s funny how Uma’s career has been in the shitter since her divorce, while Ethan went on to garner 3 Oscar nominations and he still appears in A-list material

Is it also possible that when they got divorced she had primary custody of the kids and decided to stop working and raise her children? And now that they’re grown up, she’s ready to go back to work?

She’s got size 11 feet….dayum.

She isn’t a de Menil. Her father was once married to Christophe de Menil and they have a daughter together named Taya. de Menil is part of the Schlumberger family.

During the pandemic, Taya Thurman was accused of holding her famous mother, Christophe de Menil, prisoner in her luxurious townhouse and isolating de Menil from all her vast social contacts.

I liked the performance in Hysterical Blindness too. I liked her in a small film called 'Tape'. She can be very good at times. She was 19 in Henry and June? Crazy.

I liked the performance in Hysterical Blindness too. I liked her in a small film called 'Tape'. She can be very good at times. She was 19 in Henry and June? Crazy.

Box office poison!

R78 I hadn't heard that but he's a pig for saying that.

She was brilliantly cast in Gattaca.

She criticizes her own performance in Kill Bill, but she was fun and the things she criticizes are what actually make the performance for most people, I'd wager. My favorite scene is when she pops out Daryl Hannah's remaining eye.

Has she fallen out with Quentin? I presume so but I have no idea.

She's a marginally talented actress who had an average-to-good career. She got work when she was young and beautiful and she got ignored when she was no longer young and beautiful. That's the way it goes and she had a better career than most of those girls manage.

For her small level of talent she had a very large career but there was no way it would last forever. She reminds me of Sharon Stone in that.

I think she had a pretty good career considering her level of talent and her look, which isn't conventional leading lady. She borders on homely yet credibly played sexy women with physical appeal. She's not beautiful and she's not a great actress, but her early roles worked very well.

OP's framing her career as "tragic" is pretty laughable. What's Ethan Hawk up to these days, hmmm? She has the same career trajectory as most actors of her generation or any generation. Lot's of heat and steam when they're young, and then a slow fizzle through middle age. Meryls and Tom Cs are the exception, not the rule. There are plentiful roles for young actors but not a whole lot for older ones.

Show business is inherently low class. People might earn tons of money but they will not have class. It's always been that way. That's why your better clubs and buildings don't allow show people in.

[quote]Is there a career trajectory more tragic than Uma Thurman’s?

Frances Farmer's, maybe?

I’d have to say that GapPlaylists Guy is enjoying a pretty tragic career. I imagine him teaching children but all the while fantasizing about that elusive 1992 Gap Playlist.

Poor kids.

She was always a mediocrity. She’s lucky to still be working

They should revoke her nomination for her accent in Red, Blue and White.

Is there a career trajectory more tragic than Uma Thurman’s?

The Black Dahlia OWNS this thread. (Both parts of her, anyway)

How about Peg Entwistle's career trajectory? It ended when she jumped to her death from the H in the Hollwood(land) sign.