Pretty Lethal's Uma Thurman embraces complex roles
Pretty Lethal actress prefers to explores human motivations when it comes to playing good or bad characters in movies.
Uma Thurman does not regard characters as goodies or villains.
Instead, the 55-year-old actress likes to understand what motivates them as real people.
Thurman told People: "I like to figure out some sort of essential motivation of any character through understanding someone. They're neither good nor bad very often."
In the action-thriller film Pretty Lethal, the star plays retired ballet star Devora Kasimer, who owns a suspicious roadside inn that five ballerinas - Bones (Maddie Ziegler), Princess (Lana Condor), Grace (Avantika Vandanapu), Chloe (Millicent Simmonds) and Zoe (Iris Apatow) - seek shelter in after their bus breaks down en route to a competition.
And the movie's director, Vicky Jewson, lauded Thurman's performance.
Jewson, 40, said: "Uma is obviously an icon, and she can play a villain like nobody else can.
"She has a wicked sense of humour, and she also brings empathy to the character that allows you to stay with the character when the most absurd stuff happens."
Thurman is no stranger to playing villainous characters, as she played the likes of assassin Beatrix Kiddo/The Bride in the action-thriller franchise, Kill Bill, as well as Dr Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy in 1997’s Batman + Robin.
But the Hollywood star does not "particularly like violence"
Earlier this month, Thurman told InStyle: "I actually don't particularly like violence. Some people really like it; I don't like it.
"When I see artful movement, I can enjoy violence and action because I'm blown away by it the way I would be if I saw an extraordinary dance performance."
In Pretty Lethal, Thurman's alter ego seeks revenge and mixes ballet-style movements with violent action.
The combination of feminine and brutal elements attracted the actress to the role of Devora.
Thurman said: "Not your everyday streaming Amazon premiere movie.
"I looked at it, and I was like, How are they going to market this? It's girly, and then it's wild. It's gruesome, funny, and powerful. It's so over the top, it's above the top."
Elsewhere, Ziegler, 23, revealed she did "three weeks of ballet boot camp" to train for Pretty Lethal.
And the actress loved how she, Condor, 28, Vandanapu, 21, Simmonds, 23, and Apatow, 23, immediately bonded when they were in Budapest, Hungary, to shoot the Amazon Prime Video movie.
Earlier this month, Ziegler told People: "We were all living in the same hotel, and we were immediately immersed into three weeks of boot camp [consisted of] ballet and stunt rehearsals
"We instantly clicked, and we were like, 'Oh, we're family.' It was just really special and cool, and we still keep in touch every day."
And Jewson was delighted with Ziegler - who appeared in the Lifetime reality TV show Dance Moms from 2006 until 2011 - bringing her "raw, natural style" to Bones in Pretty Lethal.
Jewson said: "[I was] absolutely thrilled when she came on board.
"To have someone of her talent and with that incredible dance background was a gift to the movie."
