Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American model and Academy Award nominated film actor. Thurman began modeling professionally in the late 1980s before moving to acting in 1988, and is best known for her films released in the 1990s and 2000s, specifically those with director Quentin Tarantino.

Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her half-Swedish, half-German mother Nena von Schlebrugg (b. 8 January 1941) was briefly married to Timothy Leary after the two were introduced by Salvador Dalí before marrying Thurman's father Robert Thurman (b. 14 October 1932), a professor at Amherst College of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies of British ancestry. Thurman and her siblings were given a Buddhist upbringing by her father, and she is named after a Hindu goddess. She has three brothers, named Ganden, Dechen and Mipam. Thurman and her siblings also spent extended amounts of time in India as children, and the Dalai Lama would sometimes visit their home.

Thurman was an awkward and introverted young girl, and was frequently teased as a child for her large frame and features, size eleven feet, unique angular bone structure, and unusual name. Due to her father frequently teaching at different universities, her family often relocated when she was a child. She was also unathletic and earned average grades in school, but excelled in acting at a young age. Her first acting experiences came in elementary school plays. Thurman left her high school, Northfield Mount Hermon, to pursue an acting career in New York City and to attend the Professional Children's School, but dropped out before graduating.

Thurman began her career as a model at the age of fifteen. Standing six feet tall (183 cm), the natually lanky framed Thurman was a successful model, and would later be featured in a layout in Glamour magazine. Thurman's mother was also a former model.

Thurman made her film debut in the 1988 with three films. Her first was the high school comedy Johnny Be Good at the age of seventeen. Thurman's next role would be a small part in the film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. With a budget of $46 million USD and box office receipts of only $8 million, the film was a commercial failure.Her third role as Cecile de Volanges in Dangerous Liaisons was her breakthrough role, which brought Thurman to the attention of the film industry.

In 1990, the 19-year-old Thurman starred with Fred Ward in the sexually provocative drama film Henry & June, the first film to receive an NC-17 rating. Due to the film's restrictive rating, it never played in a wide release but would attract more attention to Thurman's career.

Thurman's first starring role in a major production was 1993's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, directed by Gus Van Sant. The film was both a critical and financial disappointment, and Thurman was even nominated for a Worst Actress Razzie for the film. Thurman also starred opposite of Robert DeNiro in the crime drama Mad Dog and Glory, also a box office disappointment.

In 1994, Thurman would give her most successful performance to date as Mia Wallace, in a starring role in Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction. Thurman would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress the following year. Pulp Fiction would also become one of the most successful cult hits of all time when it grossed over $107 million on a budget of only $8 million USD.

Thurman followed Pulp Fiction with films of varying quality and success. She starred opposite of Janeane Garofalo in the moderately successful 1996 romantic comedy The Truth About Cats & Dogs, and the 1998 science fiction film Gattaca. Although Gattaca was not a major financial success, both the film and Thurman drew many positive reviews.

Thurman would also perform in two major film flops in 1997 and 1998. Thurman played Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin, the fourth film of the franchise. Batman & Robin was a failure at both the box office and would become one of the largest critical flops in history, but some critics praised Thurman for her enthusiastic performance.The next year brought The Avengers, which was also a major financial and critical flop. Thurman also received Razzie award nominations for the two films.

Thurman's next roles were in low budget and television films, including Sweet and Lowdown, Tape, Vatel, and Hysterical Blindness. Thurman would later win a Golden Globe award for Hysterical Blindness, a film which she also served as the executive producer. In the film she played a woman in the 1980s searching for a romantic partner.

After a five year hiatus from any major film roles, Thurman returned in 2003 in John Woo's film Paycheck, and her next collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill. Paycheck would only be moderately successful with critics and at the box office, but Kill Bill would relaunch her career.

Thurman played Beatrix Kiddo, one of the world's top assassins, out on a revenge quest against her former lover. She was offered the role on her 30th birthday from Tarantino, who wrote the part specifically for her, but production would be delayed for several months after Thurman became pregnant. Tarantino also cited Thurman as his muse while writing the film, and also gave her a formal joint credit for the character of Beatrix Kiddo, whom the two conceived on the set of Pulp Fiction. The film reportedly took nine months to shoot, and was filmed on location in five different countries. The two-part action epic was a financial success and scored highly with critics, and would earn Thurman Golden Globe nominations for both entries, and three MTV Movie Awards for Best Female Performance and twice for Best Fight.

By 2005, Thurman was one of Hollywood's highest paid actresses, commanding a salary of $12.5 million USD per film. Thurman's first film of the year was Be Cool, the sequel to 1995's Get Shorty. Thurman co-starred with her former Pulp Fiction castmate John Travolta in the film, and played the widow of a deceased music business executive. Thurman also starred in the film Prime with Meryl Streep, playing a woman in her late thirties romancing a young man in his early twenties. Thurman's last film of the year was a remake of The Producers in which she played Ulla, a Swedish stage actor hoping to win a part in a new Broadway musical. The Producers was Thurman's second musical film after Les Miserables. Originally, the producers of the film planned to have another singer dub in Thurman's musical numbers, but she was eager to do her own vocals,however it has not been confirmed if Thurman performs all of the vocals in the film.

Thurman was also a spokesmodel for the cosmetics company Lancôme. Lancôme also named several lipstick shades after her, but they were only sold in Asia. In 2005, she became a spokesmodel for the French fashion house Louis Vuitton.

In 1990 Thurman married actor Gary Oldman, but divorced him two years later. On May 1, 1998, she married actor Ethan Hawke, the two had met at the set of Gattaca. Hawke's book For Karuna was dedicated to her. They have two children, a daughter Maya Ray (b. 8 July 1998) and a son Levon Roan (b. 15 January 2002). In 2003, Thurman and Hawke separated, and in 2004 the couple filed for divorce. She now resides in Hyde Park, New York.