Uma Thurman's Daughter, Maya Hawke, Was 'Excited' to Work with Quentin Tarantino in New Movie
Maya Hawke had a unique opportunity to follow in her mom’s footsteps with her first major film.
The 21-year-old actress, who is the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, appears in Quentin Tarantino‘s ninth film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Thurman first worked with Tarantino on Pulp Fiction (1994), followed by Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
The chance to get to work with Tarantino made Hawke “excited,” especially when she stepped on set.
“I’ve never been on a set where every single person who was there was equally as excited to be there as the actors and the director and everyone were,” Hawke told PEOPLE at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Monday. “He’s been working with the same people for so long and he’s executed such amazing work. Everyone has a tremendous amount of faith in him and in the projects and it gives an amazing collaborative feeling on set.”
Hawke, who has a breakout role in the third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, plays one of Charles Manson’s family members in the film, which takes place the same year of the horrific killings ordered by Manson.
Hawke’s role in the movie comes just under a year and a half after her mom revealed she was left seriously injured from a crash she endured on the Kill Bill: Volume 2 set. Thurman first talked about the crash in an interview with Maureen Dowd published by The New York Times back in February 2018. There she alleged that Tarantino forced her to do the stunt that left her injured. They fought for years about the crash before Tarantino provided Thurman with the footage of it, she claimed.
Though Thurman believed the “circumstances of this event were negligent to the point of criminality,” the actress clarified later that she doesn’t believe there was malicious intent from Tarantino — pushing again that she forgives him.
“Quentin Tarantino, was deeply regretful and remains remorseful about this sorry event, and gave me the footage years later so I could expose it and let it see the light of day, regardless of it most likely being an event for which justice will never be possible,” Thurman wrote alongside a repost of the video on Instagram. “He also did so with full knowledge it could cause him personal harm, and I am proud of him for doing the right thing and for his courage.”
The 48-year-old actress later spoke to Entertainment Weekly about her relationship with Tarantino, revealing just three months after first opening up about their fallout that she still hopes to collaborate with him one day.
“I understand him and if he wrote a great part and we were both in the right place about it, that would be something else,” she said during an interview promoting her film, The Con Is On.
“We’ve had our fights over the years,” Thurman said. “When you know someone for as long as I’ve known him, 25 years of creative collaboration…yes, did we have some tragedies take place? Sure. But you can’t reduce that type of history and legacy. It would have been reduced to my car accident if I died.”
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood opens Friday.
