Uma Thurman Reveals What Makes Her Say ‘No’ to a Project

Uma Thurman won’t just do any project these days. The veteran actress, who currently stars with Charlize Theron in “The Old Guard 2” on Netflix, revealed the conditions she will absolutely say “no” to every time.

 “I’m really, really practical,” Thurman told The New York Times in a joint interview with Theron. “If there’s not a big enough budget and there’s a bunch of crap underwater, I’m just like, ‘Sorry, guys.’ I’m like, ‘What’s your budget? There’s a bunch of underwater stuff here? No.’”

Theron agreed with Thurman, “I am so with you. I went from like, yeah, I’m a pretty good swimmer, to: never again. I do not want to hear anything about water.”

Thurman and Theron also discussed the epic battle scene their characters, Discord and Andy, have in “The Old Guard 2,” which Thurman said they “were winging.”

“I was told I had at least five days to rehearse, and then we went and met up and they were like, ‘Oh, the schedule changed. It’s actually going to be tomorrow,’” she said. “And I was just like, ugh. And they asked, ‘Do you want to stay and go over it?’ I was like, ‘No, no, I’m going home. I’ll see you tomorrow. There’s nothing I can do in the next two hours that’s going to actually make a really significant difference.’”

While she may not have had much rehearsal time for that particular scene, Thurman told Forbes she generally enjoyed getting back into training for her action comeback. “Honestly, it was really fun,” she said. “I had a profound and amazing experience making ‘Kill Bill’ movies and I had left it there, but to go into a room and start learning movement sequences and swinging a practice sword again, I’ve really enjoyed it.”

Last month, in an appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” Thurman detailed why she took such a long hiatus from action movies. “I never really followed ‘Kill Bill’ up with action because I didn’t kind of want to be in a whole bunch of ‘B’ action movies,” Thurman said. “When you do ‘Kill Bill,’ you never stop hearing about… ‘Oh, got to be very careful about what I do next.’ So I did other stuff.”

Thurman will soon be seen in the upcoming continuation of “Dexter,” appropriately titled “Dexter: Resurrection,” which premieres July 11 on Showtime. On “Fallon,” Thurman praised star Michael C. Hall, calling him “really, really sweet and kind.”

“There’s often these kind of, like, inversions, where, like, the material’s kind of heavy or dark, but like, then the people are the nicest you’ve ever worked with,” she said.

Watch the “Dexter: Resurrection” trailer below: