Quentin Tarantino couldn’t feel guiltier about the Kill Bill stunt that almost killed Uma Thurman.
As we previously reported, in her candid New York Times interview, the 47-year-old actress claimed that the celebrated director pressured her into doing a driving stunt, despite having vocalized her qualms with the sequence. Sadly, while filming, the car crashed and caused serious, long-lasting bodily injury to Uma.
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Although the blonde A-lister has already defended Tarantino, the filmmaker has since addressed the controversy with Deadline, calling it the “biggest regret of [his] life.” He shared:
“I am guilty, for putting her in that car, but not the way that people are saying I am guilty of it… It’s the biggest regret of my life, getting her to do that stunt.”
Tarantino went on to say that he gave Uma the footage of the crash so that she could get “closure” from the accident and hoped to “help her with her memory of the incident.” However, the Oscar winner defended that he never considered Uma driving the vehicle a stunt, which is why he “rolled [his] eyes and was irritated” with Thurman’s fear.
The 54-year-old relayed:
“I’m sure when it was brought up to me, that I rolled my eyes and was irritated. But I’m sure I wasn’t in a rage and I wasn’t livid. I didn’t go barging into Uma’s trailer, screaming at her to get into the car… Anyone who knows Uma knows that going into her trailer, and screaming at her to do something is not the way to get her to do something. That’s a bad tactic and I’d been shooting the movie with her for an entire year by this time. I would never react to her this way.”
To further prove that he took precautions before the almost fatal stunt, Quentin revealed he drove down the very same road Uma crashed on. Tarantino DID concede that he didn’t take the same route as Thurman, which is how he missed the dangerous S-curve that caused the crash.
Quentin recalled:
“As a director, you learn things and sometimes you learn them through horrendous mistakes. That was one of my most horrendous mistakes, that I didn’t take the time to run the road, one more time, just to see what I would see.
She showed up, in a good mood. 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.”
Per Tarantino, this accident permanently affected his relationship with Uma. In fact, they were in a rift for a few years:
“It wasn’t like we didn’t talk. But a trust was broken. A trust broken over a year of shooting, of us doing really gnarly stuff. I wanted her to do as much as possible and we were trying to take care of her and we pulled it off. And then the last four days, in what we thought would be a simple driving shot, almost kills her.”
Well, it probably didn’t help that the incident was allegedly covered up too. Regardless, we’re glad Quentin is taking ownership for the part he played in this controversy.
[Image via WENN.]
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