Part of Pulp Fiction featuring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, and Tarantino's Crew with Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz.
Rise to Fame
Quentin Tarantino wrote Kill Bill for her because of what she did in Pulp Fiction (1994). She played Mia Wallace, the crime boss's trophy wife who overdoses at the wrong moment, and the performance got her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was 24 when the film came out, already had Dangerous Liaisons and the first NC-17-rated film on her resume, and Kill Bill was still nine years away.
In the Spotlight
The Kill Bill car crash footage she posted on Instagram in 2018, at the peak of MeToo, changed what the public knows about her. She described Weinstein's assault in the New York Times, blamed the crash cover-up on him and his producers, and forgave Quentin Tarantino specifically. She's still working, between The Kill Room reuniting her with Samuel L. Jackson and The Old Guard 2 landing on Netflix, but the 2018 piece is the one people cite now.
Side Notes
Her father, Robert Thurman, was the first Westerner ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and later taught Buddhism at Columbia. Her mother, Nena von Schlebrugge, was a Swedish model. She started modeling at 15 and was on British Vogue covers by 16. Henry & June made history as the first film to earn an NC-17 rating. The Bride in Kill Bill wasn't a role Quentin Tarantino handed her. She co-created the character with him on the Pulp Fiction set.