Uma Thurman Panicked When She Thought She Wouldn’t Find Work After Becoming a Mother

Actor Uma Thurman put her career on hold when she decided to become a mother. But she was briefly concerned that her hiatus might have been detrimental for her profession.

Uma Thurman once shared becoming a mother took her focus off of acting

Thurman was ready to make a few sacrifices in her career if it meant spending time with her children. The actor went on a long hiatus during the late 90s after having her first born.

She took up small projects here and there, but avoided work that might cost her too much time with her family. This meant that Thurman sacrificed potentially career-changing projects like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.

Thurman knew that her break from acting might have meant a few ramifications for her career. But she felt that being close to her kids was more than worth the trade-off.

“I probably very much shortchanged my career when I did that, but it was worth it,” she once told WEBMD. “Still, it’s not easy. I have a wonderful relationship with my children, and they’re the most important thing to me, but one does wish to have a creative, independent life as a person, too. It’s hard to be a self-sufficient provider and parent and have a foot in both worlds.”

But when Thurman was ready to get back to work, she was worried that the film industry passed her by. Her concerns, however, didn’t last long.

“Becoming a mother definitely took the focus off my work,” Thurman once said according to Irish Examiner. “Then I had a few panics that I couldn’t get a job any more, and then I would get one.”

Uma Thurman found being a single mom lonely

Thurman went through a difficult divorce with her ex-husband Ethan Hawke. This resulted in the former couple raising their children as single parents. In a candid interview with Red Book, Thurman confided that doing so wasn’t easy. But it didn’t make Thurman enjoy parenting any less.

“[It is] deeply challenging. And quite lonely. I just don’t feel like the ins and the outs of it are acknowledged or shared very much. But parenting itself is a wonderful thing. The beauty outweighs the difficulty,” she said.

Perhaps what made being a single parent that much harder was she didn’t have a blueprint to follow. Both of her parents, Robert Thurman and Nena von Schlebrugge, stayed together. Although she could probably turn to them for advice and support, she couldn’t quite follow their example.

“So I entered single parenthood without a lot of references as to what it might be like. Everything took me by such super surprise. It still does. Before, I felt I was a single parent, because I was on my own a lot, but I was really wrong,” Thurman said.

Thurman also considered being a single parent an educational experience.

“There is a world of difference between parenting alone, but with a person who cares about you and your children, and never having anyone around to turn to and say, ‘Oh, look what he did!’ So that was interesting to learn about,” she said.

Why Uma Thurman wanted more kids

Thurman once only had 2 children in her life. But she didn’t rule out having more. The Kill Bill star learned that motherhood was actually easier with the more children she had.

“I’d love more. I come from a large family: three brothers and a half sister. It’s a good basis for community — multiple sets of needs, of desires, of egos,” Thurman said. “When I had my second child, my anxiety as a parent dropped significantly. Worrying about one little voiceless baby was so stressful. Once there was another one, I was happy there was a witness. That’s another great thing about siblings.”

She added one more child to her family when she gave birth to a third daughter with businessman and ex-fiancé Arpad Busson.