Pulp Fiction's Dinner Scene Mirrored Quentin Tarantino & Uma Thurman's First Meeting
Uma Thurman feels like a perfect fit for the role of Mia in "Pulp Fiction," and Quentin Tarantino couldn't help but realize it from the very first time they met. The director instantly felt that she was the one for the part, and their meeting even mirrored one of the most popular scenes in the whole movie. In fact, several scenes between Mia and Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta, are directly mirrored by real-life encounters between Thurman and Tarantino.
The actor and filmmaker first met over a meal, which was much like Vincent and Mia's dinner at Jack Rabbit Slim's. Believe it or not, Tarantino wasn't sure she would be the right fit before they met and was reluctant to even meet with her, but luckily Thurman's agent talked him into it. Thurman was best known for films like "Mad Dog and Glory" at the time, which was met with lukewarm critical reception, but the actor's charm changed Tarantino's preconceived notions very quickly.
"Every other person I'd talked to had ideas about the script," he told Rolling Stone in 2004. "Maybe Uma didn't like the material, maybe she hadn't even read it, but she made it a point to not talk about it much."
Much like Mia, Thurman didn't care much for social niceties. "Why do we feel it's necessary to yack about bulls*** in order to be comfortable?" Mia asks in the film, attempting to bypass small talk into real intimacy. Rather than talk about the specifics of the script, Thurman geared the conversation towards more personal topics like family.
Thurman wanted to skip the small talk — just like Mia
Quentin Tarantino instantly saw parallels between his meeting with Uma Thurman and the Jack Rabbit Slim's scene in "Pulp Fiction."
"If you remember that scene, the two people don't really know each other," he explained to Rolling Stone. "It's a strange situation, kind of unusual, why they're there together, but in the course of having to suffer through this thing, a connection happens. They click into each other and begin to appreciate each other. And Uma and I were doing that scene. We were living the movie, all right?"
Once he'd met the "Gattaca" actor, the director's gears started to turn. "I left thinking, 'Wow, who is that girl? God, she could be Mia!” Tarantino remembered. Still, he wasn't totally sold on Thurman until he met with another potential Mia.
"It was with this terrific actress who totally got the piece," he admitted. "But I'm sitting there giving her my private thoughts about Mia — stuff that Uma and I had talked about that's not on the page — when all of a sudden I felt like I was cheating on Uma. It felt like I was having an illicit affair. 'How can I talk to another girl about Mia when Uma is Mia?' And that's when I knew."
In the end, it wasn't any tangible quality that made Tarantino realize that Thurman was right for the part — it was a completely uncontrollable instinct, some subconscious part of his brain, that told him she was the one to bring Mia to life onscreen.
Tarantino and Thurman danced like Mia and Vince at a Hollywood party
The first meeting between Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman wasn't their only real-life interaction that reflected a scene in the film. The two also cut loose on the dance floor once, just like Mia does with Vincent Vega in the iconic "Pulp Fiction" scene.
"I ran into her at this Hollywood party and asked her to dance and her eyes turned into headlights and she said in horror, 'Someone might take our picture,'" Tarantino told British Vogue in 1994. "But then she took over the dance floor and everybody just stopped in their tracks to watch her. She was terrific."
Thurman was just as terrified to dance on-screen as she was to bust a move at the party. "I was more afraid of the dancing than almost anything because it was exactly to my total insecurity," she admitted in a 2019 Variety interview. "Being big and awkward and still quite young then. But once I started dancing I didn't wanna stop, so it was a dream come true."
In the end, she overcame her fear, and dancing with John Travolta became a major accomplishment in her acting career.
"[He's] Mr. 'Saturday Night!'" she exclaimed in an E! Insider interview, referencing his hit dance film "Saturday Night Fever." "I danced with John Travolta in a movie, on a disco floor, with flashing lights. This was something, I mean, it's just too absurd. It's like swinging on a trapeze with Burt Lancaster [from 'The Leopard'] or something. It's classic. I couldn't resist."
The actor and director had a major falling out after Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino considered Uma Thurman to be his muse for several years, and the actor went on to star in "Kill Bill" volumes 1 and 2. "Uma has this thing about her that makes you want to find out her mysteries," he told British Vogue in 1994. "She's both standoffish and very revealing at the same time. She's this 23-year-old with the soul of a 40-year-old woman."
The director and Thurman "clicked" successfully for years, as Tarantino had once described it to Rolling Stone, but Thurman's experience on "Kill Bill" seriously hurt their relationship." First, Thurman was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein, who produced most of Tarantino's early work, but the real fallout came when Tarantino forced her to perform a dangerous stunt that resulted in a car crash.
"Harvey assaulted me but that didn't kill me," the actor told The New York Times in 2018. "What really got me about the crash was that it was a cheap shot. I had been through so many rings of fire by that point. I had really always felt a connection to the greater good in my work with Quentin and most of what I allowed to happen to me and what I participated in was kind of like a horrible mud wrestle with a very angry brother. But at least I had some say, you know?"
They have since had a complicated relationship, and it's unlikely that they will ever work together again. We can still see their work together, however, in "Pulp Fiction."