Charlize Theron Thinks Uma Thurman Deserved An Oscar For This Quentin Tarantino Movie

In a recent interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Charlize Theron pointed to Uma Thurman as one of her favorite action heroes. She particularly respected Thurman for her performance in the "Kill Bill" films, where she played Beatrix Kiddo, AKA the Bride, AKA Black Mamba. With a kill count in the triple digits and an uncanny ability to yank out her enemies' eyes, Beatrix is one of the coolest, toughest action heroes of the mid-2000s, and of all time.

"When I came into the action world, she was really, to me, like, the sensei. She was the OG," Charlize Theron said about Thurman. When Kimmel asked her if she thought Thurman should've won an Oscar for playing Beatrix, Theron answered, "100% [...] What she did in that film was so unbelievable, and to me, she's just such a badass. So since I've been in action movies, I'm like, 'Who do I want to work with and do an action sequence with?' It's always been Uma Thurman. Always."

That's why Thurman was particularly excited (and stressed out) to be working alongside Thurman for her new movie "The Old Guard 2," which drops on Netflix July 2, 2025. The trailer for the movie shows that Uma Thurman's character is not just intimidating, but she'll be sword-fighting with Theron's character at least once. 

"I was definitely intimidated by her," Theron mentioned to Kimmel. "Especially when she showed up and she was given one sword, and we had worked out this whole sequence, and she went, 'I think I want two swords.'"

There are a lot of potential reasons why Thurman was denied an Oscar for "Kill Bill." A big factor was that the movies were campier than the usual Oscar winners, but perhaps the most important factor was that "Kill Bill" was split in half. With "Volume 1" releasing in October 2003 and "Volume 2" in April 2004, both films were very much seen as two halves of a big movie, not two movies in their own right. That's not an ideal situation as far as the Academy's concerned, because who wants to give an award to half a movie? 

When it comes to the question of which volume Thurman's performance deserved an Oscar the most, things also get tricky: in "Volume 1," Thurman gets to play Beatrix at her coldest, most intense. This is her at the start of her revenge quest, where she's mowing down bad guys left and right and looking scary (and cool) as hell doing it. But it's also Beatrix at her least nuanced. "Volume 1," with its many jumps through time, deliberately withholds a lot of information about her from the audience, to the point where we don't even know her full name yet. 

It's only with "Volume 2" that the movie really dives into who Beatrix is as a person, both before and after the titular Bill betrays her. This is the installment where Thurman gets to show off her acting chops, as it's where Tarantino gets to embrace his dialogue-heavy style that "Volume 1" downplayed. "Volume 1" Beatrix was a mysterious killing machine, whereas "Volume 2" feels like a fully fleshed-out, sympathetic person. Thurman deserved some sort of award for both "Kill Bill" volumes, but "Volume 2" is definitely where she shone the brightest.