From a martial-artist mother in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill to dewy-eyed ingenue in Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons to a mobster's employee in John McNaughton's Mad Dog and Glory, Uma Thurman has played all kinds of characters. She joins Fresh Air to talk about her background (she's the daughter of noted Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman), about her varied career and about her role in the new independent film The Life Before Her Eyes.

The film, directed by Vadim Perelman and based on the book by Laura Kasischke, is the story of a troubled woman, Diana, who years before came face to face with death during a high-school shooting. The story flashes backward and forward, interweaving Diana's untroubled life as a pretty, popular teenager (played by Evan Rachel Wood) and as a married woman and mother (played by Thurman) haunted by her past.

Thurman's other films include Pulp Fiction, The Producers and Sweet and Lowdown.

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