"It's hard sometimes if you think a character should look a certain way and you're being pushed to do it differently. I've had fights over that. That's why it's so important that you work with good people"
About this Quote
Casting and character design are sold as collaborative arts, but Uma Thurman lets the industry’s real power dynamics slip into the frame: the actor’s imagination is negotiable, and “being pushed” is often code for commerce, branding, or someone else’s taste winning by default. The quote is plainspoken, almost weary, and that’s why it lands. She isn’t mythologizing conflict; she’s normalizing it. Of course there are fights. Of course you lose some.
Her phrasing draws a sharp line between “a character should look a certain way” and “do it differently.” That tension can be artistic (a director’s reinterpretation) but it also gestures toward the many off-screen pressures that shape a performance: marketability, the male gaze, studio notes, even the politics of who gets to be “believable” in a role. Thurman, whose most iconic parts hinge on stylized visual identity, knows that appearance isn’t superficial in film; it’s narrative. Change the look, and you change what the audience is permitted to read.
The final pivot - “That’s why it’s so important that you work with good people” - isn’t a platitude so much as a survival strategy. “Good” here means ethical, yes, but also secure enough to argue well: collaborators who can disagree without weaponizing authority. The subtext is a quiet indictment of sets where conflict becomes coercion, and a reminder that creative freedom in Hollywood often depends less on talent than on leverage and trust.
Her phrasing draws a sharp line between “a character should look a certain way” and “do it differently.” That tension can be artistic (a director’s reinterpretation) but it also gestures toward the many off-screen pressures that shape a performance: marketability, the male gaze, studio notes, even the politics of who gets to be “believable” in a role. Thurman, whose most iconic parts hinge on stylized visual identity, knows that appearance isn’t superficial in film; it’s narrative. Change the look, and you change what the audience is permitted to read.
The final pivot - “That’s why it’s so important that you work with good people” - isn’t a platitude so much as a survival strategy. “Good” here means ethical, yes, but also secure enough to argue well: collaborators who can disagree without weaponizing authority. The subtext is a quiet indictment of sets where conflict becomes coercion, and a reminder that creative freedom in Hollywood often depends less on talent than on leverage and trust.
Quote Details
| Topic | Team Building |
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