Uma Thurman Reveals She Almost Died in a Stunt That Quentin Tarantino Made Her Do

Uma Thurman has accused director Quentin Tarantino of forcing her to perform a stunt on the set of Kill Bill that almost killed her.

The actress told the New York Times that she was four days away from finishing the nine-month shoot for the two films when Tarantino said she would be driving the blue convertible and not a stunt performer.

Uma didn’t feel comfortable driving the car and says a teamster led her to believe the car might not be working well.

“Quentin came in my trailer and didn’t like to hear no, like any director,” she says. “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.’”

Quentin told her to “‘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 deathbox that I was in. The seat wasn’t screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.”

In video footage shared by the Times, Uma can be seen driving down a winding road and then crash into a tree. “The steering wheel was at my belly and my legs were jammed under me. I felt this searing pain and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to walk again.’ When I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset. Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me. And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didn’t feel he had tried to kill me.”

Uma says that it took her 15 years for her to obtain the footage and that Miramax tried to get her to sign a document “releasing them of any consequences of my future pain and suffering” in exchange for the footage. She didn’t sign it.

“When they turned on me after the accident, I went from being a creative contributor and performer to being like a broken tool,” Uma said.

Make sure to also read what Uma said in the article about being attacked by producer Harvey Weinstein, who produced the Kill Bill movies.