Uma Thurman

Thurman's father, Robert, a scholar and professor at Columbia University of Tibetan Buddhist studies, was the first westerner to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He gave his children a Buddhist upbringing: Uma is named after an Dbuma Chenpo (in Tibetan, the "db" is silent; from Mahamadhyamaka in Sanskrit, meaning "Great Middle Way"). She has three brothers, Ganden (b. 1971), Dechen (b. 1973) and Mipam (b. 1978), and a half-sister named Taya (b. 1960) from her father's previous marriage. She and her siblings spent time in Almora, India, during childhood, and the Dalai Lama sometimes visited their home.

Thurman grew up mostly in Amherst, Massachusetts and Woodstock, New York. She is described as having been an awkward and introverted girl who was teased for her tall frame, angular bone structure, and unusual name (sometimes using the name “Uma Karen” instead of her birth name). When she was 10 years old, a friend's mother suggested a nose job.

As a child, she suffered bouts of body dysmorphic disorder.

Thurman attended Northfield Mount Hermon, a college preparatory boarding school in Northfield, Massachusetts, where she earned average grades, but excelled in acting. Talent scouts noticed her performance as Abigail in a production of The Crucible, and offered her the chance to act professionally. Thurman moved to New York City to pursue acting and to attend the Professional Children's School, but she dropped out before graduating.

Thurman began her career as a fashion model at age 15. She signed with the agency Click Models. Her modeling credits included Glamour Magazine. In 1989, she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine's annual Hot issue.

Thurman made her movie debut in 1988, appearing in four films that year. Her first two were the high school comedy Johnny Be Good and the teen thriller Kiss Daddy Goodnight.

Thurman’s first starring role in a major production was Gus Van Sant's 1993 adaptation of Tom Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. It was a critical and financial disappointment; Thurman was nominated for a Worst Actress Razzie. The Washington Post described her acting as shallow, writing that, “Thurman’s strangely passive characterization doesn’t go much deeper than drawling and flexing her prosthetic thumbs”. Thurman also starred opposite Robert De Niro in the drama Mad Dog and Glory, another box office disappointment. Later that year, she auditioned for Stanley Kubrick while he was casting a movie to be called Wartime Lies, which was never produced. Her agent said she described working with him as a “really bad experience”.

After Mad Dog and Glory, Thurman auditioned for Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, which grossed over $107 million on a budget of only $8 million USD. The Washington Post wrote that Thurman was “serenely unrecognizable in a black wig, [and] is marvelous as a zoned-out gangster’s girlfriend”. Thurman was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar the following year.

After the birth of her first baby in 1998, Thurman took a rest from major roles to concentrate on motherhood. Her next roles were in low-budget and television films, including Tape, Vatel, and Hysterical Blindness. In 2000, she narrated a theatrical work by composer John Moran entitled Book of the Dead (2nd Avenue) at The Public Theater. She won a Golden Globe award for Hysterical Blindness, a film for which she also served as executive producer. In the film, she played a New Jersey woman in the 1980s searching for romance.

After a five-year hiatus, Thurman returned in 2003 in John Woo's film Paycheck, which was only moderately successful with critics and at the box office.

Her next film was Tarantino's Kill Bill, which relaunched her career. By 2005, Thurman was commanding a salary of $12.5 million per film. Her first film of the year was Be Cool, the sequel to 1995's Get Shorty, which reunited her with her Pulp Fiction castmate John Travolta.

With a successful film career, Thurman once again became a desired model. Cosmetics company Lancôme selected her as their spokeswoman, and named several shades of lipstick after her, though they were sold only in Asia. In 2005, she became a spokeswoman for the French fashion house Louis Vuitton.

Thurman supports the United States Democratic Party, and has given money to the campaigns of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Joseph R. Driscoll. She supports gun control laws, and in 2000, she participated in Marie Claire’s “End Gun Violence Now” campaign. She also participated in Planned Parenthood’s “March for Women’s Lives” to support the legality of abortion. Thurman is a member of the board of the New York– and Boston-based organization Room to Grow, a charitable organization providing aid to families and children born into poverty. She serves on the board of the Tibet House.

In 2007, Thurman hosted the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway with actor Kevin Spacey.

On the set of State of Grace, she met English actor Gary Oldman. They were married in 1990, but the marriage ended in 1992. On May 1, 1998, Thurman married actor Ethan Hawke, whom she met on the set of Gattaca. Hawke's novel Ash Wednesday is dedicated to "Karuna", Thurman's middle name. Thurman acknowledged that they had married because she was pregnant – seven months at their wedding. The marriage produced two children, daughter Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke (b. July 8, 1998) and son Levon Roan Thurman-Hawke (b. January 15, 2002). In 2003, Thurman and Hawke separated, and in 2004 they filed for divorce.

Director Quentin Tarantino has described Thurman as his "muse". However, in a 2004 Rolling Stone cover story, Thurman and Tarantino denied having had a romantic relationship, despite Tarantino once having told a reporter, “I’m not saying that we haven’t, and I’m not saying that we have”.

Thurman owns a townhouse in New York's Greenwich Village, but lives in Hyde Park, New York. Raised as a Buddhist, she considers herself agnostic.

Thurman dated Andre Balazs from 2004 to 2006. She was engaged to London based Franco-Swiss financier Arpad Busson, whom she began dating in late 2007.