UMA THURMAN

It was 1980 and, despite being only 10 years old, Uma Thurman was anxious about the way she looked. At school, she was bullied about her height, large feet and hands, and wide-set eyes. “I was sure that my looks were hideous,” Thurman later said. “I was a little too tall, odd, funny looking.” Yet a mere eight years later she was being feted as one of Hollywood’s most beautiful new stars after her breakthrough role in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Being considered attractive and talented was quite the validation for a young woman shunned by her classmates.

Thurman is now one of the most recognised faces in the industry, shimmying her way to icon status in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic Pulp Fiction in 1994. Her performance as Mia Wallace earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a lifelong role as Tarantino’s muse.

But there was also a dark side to her dazzling cinematic pairing