Uma Thurman returns to the action genre in Netflix's The Old Guard 2
From the vengeful Bride in Kill Bill to the enigmatic Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman has carved an indelible niche in cinematic history, particularly within the action genre. Her collaborations with acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino not only solidified her status as a pop culture icon but also showcased her remarkable ability to blend intense physicality with dramatic depth.
Article content
Article content
After a 21-year hiatus from the action genre, Thurman makes a highly anticipated return in The Old Guard 2, which is now streaming on Netflix. In this eagerly awaited sequel, Andy (Charlize Theron) and her team of immortal warriors face a new enemy, Discord (Thurman), one of the oldest immortals who threatens their existence along with the rest of the world. Directed by Victoria Mahoney, the film also stars KiKi Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Henry Golding, Vân Veronica Ngô, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli.
Article content
Article content
This comeback, which Thurman charmingly described as 'tickling her pink,' sees her embracing the challenge of new physically demanding roles. The Boston-born actor is celebrated for injecting humanity into even her most dangerous characters – a trait she consciously brought to the 'tortured and twisted' antagonist Discord. In this exciting new phase of her career, she has a newfound sense of calm, a tranquility she confesses she'd never experienced before. Her return isn't just a nostalgic echo of past glories, it's also a reminder of her enduring talent.
Article content
Article content
I was excited. I wish I had had more time to practice. It just tickled me pink having kind of not doing any rehashing of my Kill Bill moments and then just tossing them to Charlize. in this finale of her great action epic work. So, it really was fun. And it was kind of perfect because it was challenging, and it was exciting. And, also, she had all the heavy lifting, and I got to see her incredible working style. It was really wonderful.
Article content
Director Victoria Mahoney said that you became a vital part of shaping Discord's arc and preventing this from being a tropey antagonist. What did you wanna bring to Discord?
Article content
I wanted to bring to Discord the same thing I always try to bring to characters, which is humanity. She's kind of tortured and twisted and dangerous, but she's coming at it from a slightly broken but passionate once-human heart. What I liked about the first film is that all of the characters were really quite relatable, less so the villain. And I thought in this case that she would be serving the piece best if she was more relatable as a sort of tortured human.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vancouver Sun
an hour ago
- Vancouver Sun
How Bluesfest became "polyjamorous"
There's a new word floating around social media that describes Ottawa Bluesfest perfectly. Polyjamorous is an adjective that mashes up 'poly,' which is a prefix for many, 'jam,' as in musical jams, and 'amorous,' a state of love. In my mind, it can be applied to anyone who likes different styles of music, or events that showcase a variety of musical genres. With a head-spinning lineup that veers from country queen Shania Twain to punk legends Green Day to 80s metalheads Def Leppard, Bluesfest is a classic example of a polyjamorous event, and I'm here for all of it. In fact, I would urge Bluesfest organizers to add a tagline describing it as such in their marketing efforts. Something like: 'Bluesfest: For the polyjamorous.' Get top headlines and gossip from the world of celebrity and entertainment. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sun Spots will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. That simple change would go a long way towards smoothing out a perennial debate for the 31-year-old festival, which this year runs from July 10-20 at LeBreton Flats Park. Every summer around this time, people wonder why Bluesfest is still called Bluesfest. The name should change, the purists contend, pointing to the 'token' number of blues acts in the lineup. Here I want to point out that Bluesfest always has a decent dose of blues, and this year's edition is no exception, although none of it is on the main stage. Some of the most-anticipated blues acts on the 2025 program include the Ottawa-born, Austin-bred guitar guru Sue Foley, rising Mississippi superstar Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram, soulful blues fusionist Fantastic Negrito, B.B. King-inspired singer-guitarist D.K. Harrell and Darrell Nulisch, the singer and harmonica player who was a key member of James Cotton's band. The thriving Ottawa blues scene is also represented, featuring ska-blues bandleader D.B. Cohen, singer-guitarist JW-Jones, and harmonica mistress Catriona Sturton, while Canadian blues acts such as Garnetta Cromwell & DaGroovmasters, Chambers-Deslauriers, Andre Bisson and Rosie's Smokehouse Deluxe are also part of the fun. Still, those of a certain age look back with fondness on the early days of Bluesfest in the 1990s, when there was one stage and it was filled with shows by blues legends such as Buddy Guy, Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Ray Charles. Funnily enough, the bluesworthiness discussion actually started in 1994, the first year of Bluesfest, as sticklers ranted about Buckwheat Zydeco and Randy Bachman not being bluesy enough for a blues festival. Their argument gained steam as the programming shifted at the turn of the century. The 2000 edition of Bluesfest featured a headlining performance by Sting, marking the first time the festival booked a pop superstar. The move sparked a fresh round of grumbling about Bluesfest being invaded by pop music. As you may recall, the Sting show was a huge success and a significant turning point. It not only demonstrated that organizers could handle a major international act but also paved the way for a contingent of top-tier acts to appear in subsequent years. Corporate sponsorship increased and attendance grew. Over the years, the stable of superstars booked at the festival expanded to include rapper Kanye West, rockers White Stripes, pop diva Lady Gaga, electro maestro Skrillex, hip-hop mogul Snoop Dogg, hard-rockers KISS and many more. Attendance swelled to 20,000-plus each night. Early in this multi-genre programming approach, festival boss Mark Monahan realized the pop acts sold a level of tickets that helped subsidize the blues content. 'I'm going to do what I have to do to ensure that I can get the blues acts that I want,' Monahan said in a 2003 interview. 'Without the more mainstream, big shows, we would never be at the point where our entertainment budget is at $1.4 million. The big acts make that happen because, realistically, the pure blues audience just isn't big enough to provide that sort of monetary base.' If you ask him now why the organization has kept the Bluesfest name, he will outline the importance of maintaining a widely recognized and highly regarded 31-year-old brand. 'I think we're resigned to the fact that it's 31 years now and and even if it's another 31 years it'll still be a topic of discussion,' Monahan said. 'But yeah, I do think the debate helps promote the festival.' Fair enough, I say. But there are still people like Dalton Holloway, a public servant with a marketing background, who submitted a letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen earlier this year, describing the Bluesfest moniker as 'grossly misleading.' 'I think we owe it to the artists, visitors and ourselves to have a moment of honesty,' Holloway wrote. 'It's time to rebrand Ottawa's biggest festival. A name that fully encompasses the diversity of artists and talent that serenades this city.' He didn't have a suggestion, so I dug up a 2024 Reddit thread on the topic in hopes of finding some ideas. The only one I saw was the unimaginative General Music Fest. Yawn. This brings us back to the polyjamorous descriptor. I like it because it reflects how most people listen to music these days. Thanks to the prevalence of streaming services, music fans can check out any style that strikes our fancy at any time. It's a far cry from the pre-Internet age when identities were defined and friendships forged through the type of music one sought out and listened to, whether it was metal or punk or new wave or blues or rock. Friend groups tended to form around specific musical tastes and stick together. (For the record, I was in the blues crowd in high school.) Those days are long gone and I'm not sad about it. Nor do I have concerns about the relevance of the name. From my perspective, Bluesfest was ahead of its time in opening up our relationship with music. Let's face it. We're all polyjamorous now, and Bluesfest is our annual celebration of genre-hopping abundance. lsaxberg@
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Italian film industry rocked by ‘fantasy film' linked to American director sought in double murder
ROME (AP) — The head of the Italian Culture Ministry's film department resigned Thursday following revelations that an American film director accused in a double homicide had secured nearly $1 million in tax credits from the ministry for a film he never made. The Culture Ministry announced the resignation of Nicola Borrelli in a brief statement overnight, thanking him for his service. It didn't provide a reason. But the scandal over the 'fantasy film' tax credits erupted soon after Greek authorities on the island of Skiathos arrested the California-born Francis Kaufman last month on a European arrest warrant issued by Italy. Italian prosecutors have accused Kaufman in the deaths of an infant girl and her mother, whose bodies were found naked in Rome's Villa Pamphili park on June 7. Kaufman, who was using the alias Rexal Ford, is currently awaiting extradition to Italy. State-run RAI television has said that he told Italian prosecutors via video call that he was innocent, but declined to answer further questions without a lawyer. The Culture Ministry has confirmed that Kaufman, using the alias Ford and his Tintangel Films LLC company, had obtained the tax credit for a film, 'Stelle della Notte' (Stars of the Night), that was never made. The confirmation came in a statement last week in which the ministry confirmed it had handed over to prosecutors all the documentation it had in connection with the film, a co-production with an Italian firm Coevolutions Srl. Italian media have published ministry documentation showing that 'Stelle della Notte' had obtained 836,439.08 euros in tax credits in 2023. Such tax credits are a regular part of the financial incentives Italy gives to filmmakers to produce and distribute films in the country. On Wednesday, Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli told lawmakers that the ministry was cooperating fully with prosecutors, noting that he had personally accompanied the police when they arrived at the ministry June 27 to seize the material. In an appearance in the Senate chamber, Giuli acknowledged a long-standing problem in the ministry of financing and tax credits for projects that never get made. 'No more fantasy films,' he vowed. The resignation of Borrelli was the second earthquake this week in the Italian film industry, following the resignation over the weekend of the head of the storied Cinecitta film studio, Chiara Sbarigia. Sbarigia said in a statement that she was stepping down to concentrate on her other job as president of Italy's audio-visual producers association. Italian media and lawmakers had blasted her dual jobs as a conflict of interest, a claim that she and Giuli have denied.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Incredibly ambitious and probably really stupid': R.T. Thorne's sci-fi debut '40 Acres'
TORONTO – R.T. Thorne says he could have played it safe with his debut feature. Instead, he swung for the fences, writing an epic sci-fi thriller about generational trauma, cannibalism and humanity's connection with land — all set in what he calls 'a post-apocalyptic world where the stakes are at the absolute highest.' 'For my first film, it was incredibly ambitious and probably really stupid to write something like that,' the Calgary-born writer-director laughs in a recent video call from Toronto. '40 Acres,' out Friday, centres on a Black-Indigenous family in a famine-stricken future where a fungal pandemic has wiped out all animal life on the planet. When a marauding group of cannibals closes in on their farm, ex-military matriarch Hailey Freeman, played by Danielle Deadwyler, clashes with her son Manny, played by Toronto's Kataem O'Connor, over the best way to survive a world in ruins. Deadwyler says she was drawn to the film's historical context — the Freemans are the last descendants of a Black family of farmers who settled in Canada after the U.S. Civil War. 'The connection between the American and Canadian history of folks getting to this northern liberated land, it was very much on my mind,' the Atlanta native says in a recent video call Los Angeles. 'You can talk about the Underground Railroad for sure — there were people escaping who got (to Canada) and established themselves. When we think about Hailey, she is coming from a place where she understands the century-plus-long history of her family on the land that they are fighting for.' Michael Greyeyes, who plays Hailey's partner Galen, considers '40 Acres' an 'Indigenous rights film' because it centres on people fighting to stay on their land. 'If you look at the world in general, colonialism, empire and taking land away from Indigenous populations is an ongoing threat,' says the actor from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, reached by Zoom in Winnipeg. 'Our film actually states that the land belongs to the caretakers and that we resist empire and we resist encroachment.' Thorne says the earliest seeds of the film were planted in something more intimate: a desire to channel his relationship with his mother. 'She ran a strict household. I grew up with somebody who was so concerned and so vital in teaching me how to move in the world and what she felt was important in the world,' he recalls. Thorne got his start directing music videos for artists including Sean Paul and Keshia Chanté before creating the 2020 sci-fi series 'Utopia Falls' and helming the 2022 period drama 'The Porter,' both of which aired on CBC. With '40 Acres,' he set out to explore 'the universal generational conflict that happens in every family: the parents think they know what it is and as the young people grow up, they want freedom.' But as a self-described 'dreamer,' his ambitions quickly grew, envisioning a do-or-die sci-fi future where that family tension could play out on a much larger canvas. Originally conceived seven years ago as a microbudget project through Telefilm's Talent to Watch program, the Sudbury, Ont.-shot film expanded in scale and scope to match Thorne's creative vision. There were some growing pains. Just after the film's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, the union representing crew members on the shoot issued a statement saying they were 'profoundly disappointed' that some crew and vendors had yet to be fully paid for their work on the production. IATSE — which represents behind-the-scenes workers across film, TV and theatre — says all outstanding payments have since been made. At a public event in Toronto last week, '40 Acres' producer Jennifer Holness addressed the situation by saying that just before filming began in fall 2023, a U.S. distributor that promised a minimum guarantee asked for script changes that would have 'damaged the film and our vision.' Holness said the team chose to walk away, leaving the production '$2 million in the hole.' With an initial $8 million budget — including $3.2 million in public funding from Telefilm — Holness said the production became a week-to-week financial struggle. 'Every single week after the third week of production, we were in a situation of, 'How do we get to the end of the week and pay everyone?'' she said. 'We did 12 weeks up there, and we paid our crew every single week on time. We, the producers, had to come together and invest in the film ourselves. It was a journey. It was an incredibly stressful journey.' Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. The film was picked up by U.S. distributor Magnolia earlier this year and heads to screens across North America this week. Thorne says all payment issues have been resolved and commends Holness for 'steadying the ship.' He adds there are many issues that occur during productions that people don't know about. 'You're always almost falling over to get it to the screen. The thing that I will say is that you come together as a community and you try to fix the mistakes and issues that you have and you make sure that people feel taken care of,' he says. 'And then you come out successful at the end when you do it. And the films that don't, you don't hear about them.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2025.
