Cover Star: Choosing Mr Right
By KATE HODAL
AS if planning your wedding weren’t hard enough, there’s nothing to set you back like discovering you’re already married – to someone you’ve never met!
For most women, finding and settling down with your one true love can be a soul-searching, life-long activity that you only hope ends in success. But for Um a Thurman in her latest movie role, finding a husband is a bit like catching a bus: you spend forever waiting for the right one to show up, and then two arrive at once.
The Accidental Husband, Uma’s latest foray into the world of rom- com, sees the six-foot beauty playing Dr Emma Lloyd, a pragmatic but uptight radio relationship expert and talk-show host, who’s engaged to the affable and ever-so-English Michael (played by romantic pin up and ex-Mr Darcy, Colin Firth, right), when she discovers that – on paper – she’s already betrothed to some fella named Patrick.
While the so-called ‘love doctor’ might spend her days dispensing advice to the lonely and bewildered women of New York, when it comes to knowing what real love is, she doesn’t have a clue. After carelessly advising one caller to ditch her hubby-to-be, Emma finds herself the victim of a spurned and hot-headed fireman (played by Grey’s Anatomy star Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who decides the only way to cure his broken heart is to hack into city records and make Emma already married – to him.
"Emma is at the height of her career and she’s about to be married to a great guy," explains Um a, looking gorgeous in a black suit and plunging gold top for the London premiere of the film (which she rode to in a London fire engine).
"She thinks she has it all and then this ‘accidental husband’ comes in and wrecks everything. I just love the vulnerability of someone who thinks she knows everything and then gets taught the lesson of her life. And I could completely relate to her: super successful, sure of herself in practically every way, and clueless at the same time!"
Uma spent the last 10 years developing this film, which she also produced, after finding that all the roles she was being offered were a bit ditzy (think The Truth About Cats and Dogs), a bit serious (remember Dangerous Liaisons?), or a bit too active (try Kill Bill).
Being a producer meant that not only could Um a write her self into the lead, she could also have her say in a stellar cast, which includes cinema veterans Sam Shepard, Is a bell a Rossellini and Colin Firth.
"Colin is charming and wonderful," says the 37-year-old, smiling. "I had the best time with him and I would love to work with him again. He’s completely smooth and he has a dry hum our, which is fabulous."
Uma’s choice in the film is a hard one: do you go for the man of your reality, who you know is responsible and trust-worthy, or do you choose the impulsive and fun man of your dreams?
"I’m very impulsive, but I’ve pretended to bepragmatic for most of my life," admits Uma, who was married to Gary Old managed 20.
Whether led by impulse or not, Uma’s love life has been in and out of the newspapers after her six-year marriage to her Gattaca co- star Ethan Hawke, with whom she has two children – Maya Ray, nine, and Lev on Roan, six, ended in 2004.
Since then she’s been linked to New York hotelier Andre Balazs and is now rumoured to be engaged to Elle Macpher son’s former partner, French financier Arpad Busson.
While she may have felt some affinity with the romantic-but- confused ‘love doctor’, Uma downplays the importance of advice.
"I don’t think anyone takes advice," she says, sporting am ysterious blue-stoned ring on her wedding finger, "everyone just needs to talk about their issues. They don’t actually ever want to take advice, but it’s a great launching point for gossip.
"When I was 12, I told my mum that I wanted to be an actress, and she said, ‘What? Are you kidding? Everyone wants to be that. Don’t be ridiculous.’"
Uma left school at 15 to model and was quickly cast in a succession of films, including a role as Venus in The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen and as the naive (and occasionally topless) Cecile de Volanges in Dangerous Liaisons with John Malkovich.
But after 1994′s Pulp Fiction, she became one of the industry’s highest-paid actresses, and was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as the black-bob wearing Mia Wallace, as well as two Golden Globes for her samurai sword-wielding portrayal of Black Mamba in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill series.
Despite the success of Kill Bill 1 and 2, however, Uma – named for the Buddhist philosophy of the "Great Middle Way"
(her father, a scholar of Indo-Tibetan studies, was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk) – squashed any rumours of another Tarantino-Thurman action film.
"I should make another action, ‘female-hero’ type of film," she says, "but I haven’t yet found the script for it, one that demands that I go through all that exercise!"
Uma’s having fun not "putting myself into boxes", it seems, which explains her recent role as Swedish stage actress Ulla in The Producers, portraying the victim of an attack in thriller The Life Before Her Eyes, and modelling for Luis Vuitton.
As for The Accidental Husband – and perhaps her impending engagement to Arpad Busson – she seems clear.
"It’s not just about love but about true happiness. Who hasn’t spent hours talking about love and relationships, wondering how to get it right and what it all means? I think we all want to know how to be happy."
The Accidental Husband is released on Friday
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