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By now, most people have seen the terrifying footage of Uma Thurman tearing down a dirt road – against her will – and losing control of the car she was shooting in for a scene in Kill Bill 15 years ago. Consequentially she was taken to hospital with a concussion.
An explosive New York Times interview with the actress – is which she accuses Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct – also revealed director Quentin Tarantino coerced Thurman into driving the car in lieu of a stuntman. She recalled sitting in her trailer after refusing to take part in the scene. “Quentin didn’t like to hear no, like any director,” the 47-year-old told the publication. “He was furious because I’d cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: ‘I promise you the car is fine. It’s a straight piece of road. Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair won’t blow the right way and I’ll make you do it again.’ But that was a death-box that I was in. The seat wasn’t screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.”
Overnight, Tarantino has spoken out about the incident labelling it one of the “biggest regrets of my life”. It was in fact Tarantino however who gave the footage to Thurman to help with her Times interview. “I told her the road was a straight line. I told her it would be safe. And it wasn’t. I was wrong,” he told Deadline. “I didn’t force her into the car. She got into it because she trusted me. And she believed me. We did the shot. And she crashed. At first, no one really knew what happened. After the crash, when Uma went to the hospital, I was feeling in total anguish at what had happened. It was heartbreaking. Beyond one of the biggest regrets of my career, it is one of the biggest regrets of my life.”
Thurman labelled the event as “negligent to the point of criminality.” She told the Times she had thought the director was trying to kill her. Oddly, the actress seems to have since partly forgiven him. “Tarantino was deeply regretful and remains remorseful about this sorry event, and gave me the footage years later so I could expose it and let it see the light of day,” Thurman wrote on her Instagram. She blames Harvey Weinstein for attempting to destroy the footage, which can be viewed below:
