"I 'M A WHALE!" UMA THURMAN IS CHATTING HAPPILY WITH A bartender she knows at Manhattan's St. Regis Hotel, where we're having tea. To illustrate her condition (the, ah, work of actor Ethan Hawke), Thurman enthusiastically pushes her denim-overalled six-months-pregnant belly up and off the loveseat on which her lanky, nearly six-foot body is sprawled. The bartender inquires, Boy or girl? "I'm damn curious, but since I don't have any excuses to do an amniocentesis, I don't know," says Thurman. "Eleven more weeks and I'm going to head back here and sit and have a glass of wine with you."

You think: Hmm, well, actresses do live in hotels an awful lot, which would make the staff sort of like neighbors, and they probably feel a strong affinity for those of the fine service profession-often, it's the only kind of work they've done before acting. But still: Is this inelegant behavior befitting the too-cool-for-school Pulp Fiction star? Or the regally lovely Oscar nominee (for Fiction) at the 1994 Academy Awards, where she wore that pristine lavender gown? Where's her celebrated cerebral-ness (John Malkovich has been quoted as saying she has a "horrifyingly great brain"); her idealized beauty (in Beautiful Girls and The Truth About Cats & Dogs); or her astonishing sexiness (her topless debut in 1988's Dangerous Liaisons, which was met with torrents of orgasmic prose)?

You could say Thurman is giddy and high on motherhood hormones. You could say she's a nice, normal, friendly woman. Both would be true. "I'm just a big, pregnant person," she says, smiling. But-not exactly. As earthy as this self-definition sounds, and as low-key as she presents herself (hair that doesn't look recently combed, a face that isn't makeup enhanced), Thurman, 28, still comes off as a breed apart from regular folks as well as from other Hollywood actresses. Perhaps it's because she's making a temporary exit from showbiz (after filming Les Miserables and The Avengers) and entering the role of wife. And mom. And houseowner.

"I'm in a very rich chapter of my life. My mind is constantly getting blown," she says of her marriage to Hawke. "You know those periods when you're comfortable and maybe bored but you're familiar with where all the buttons are and you push them?" she asks. "Then you have another chapter, which is the growth phase. It can be really painful or ecstatic. I've been through painful ones. This one is wonderful."

Thurman and Hawke, 27, met while embracing each other's genetic imperfections in Gattaca; unlike many on-set romances, this one went all the way to the altar: "I've never had anything better, I think." Her "I think" is, I think, a mannerism and not a betrayal of matrimonial anxiety. Of her first marriage, to recovered-alcoholic British actor Gary Oldman, she says: "It's in the past and has no relation to the present. It's like a black and white movie. And the subtitles are in a language I don't remember how to speak."

Thurman's current vocabulary includes words like "cellar" and "decorating"; she's consumed with preparing her newly purchased house (reported to be in Sneden's Landing, an arty enclave about 20 miles from Manhattan) for the baby: "I didn't know I could have so much fun and not be at work! I'm rushing around, doing errands, getting the paint tested for lead." Unlike the palatial estate you might expect for a movie star who makes millions per picture, Thurman's house "has just enough rooms. It's not so big that I couldn't clean it myself-you could almost trip over someone in this house-but it's big enough so that there are places to go."

Like almost every other twentysomething, Thurman has graduated from the crate-and-futon school of decorating-but just barely. "There's something temporary about New York City apartments, even when you own them. I would have a corner full of boxes the entire time I lived somewhere. Why buy a coffee table? We can just use the boxes! I always had the feeling that I wouldn't create a home for just me. I wouldn't really care until it was more than me." Two more, to be precise-but don't bother trying to pry the name of the third occupant. Thurman won't discuss babynames. "We don't even tell friends. If you like a name and tell anybody, they go, `Oh, that's... all right'-you don't want those reactions. It's nice to change your mind and think it over."

Much has been made of Thurman's own, rather unconventional childhood. The daughter of America's most famous non-Hollywood Buddhist (Professor Robert A.F. Thurman hosts the Dalai Lama when he swings by Manhattan) and Nena von Schlebrugge, a Swedish former model and current psychotherapist, Thurman was raised (along with brothers Dechen, Ganden and Mipam) in an academic home in the college town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Her parents stressed individuality to such an extent that they fully supported Uma's decision not to attend college, or even to graduate from high school. As for her name, she has conquered thank you very much, any lingering effects of being teased. "If my name were Mary, they would have picked some thing else," she says, "because they wanna give you a hard time. It's not just because they think your name is weird, it's because there's something quirky about you."

When she alludes to having suffered from ugly-duckling syndrome, you kind of believe her (unlike Michelle Pfeiffer and Cindy Crawford). Her strong, sensuous features were perhaps too potent when situated on a child-size face, or atop a gangly-girl body. (In fact, her way of turning to you directly and staring into your eyes while listening is unsettling on an adult-size face.) The "negative attention" she got in the schoolyard turned out to be a blessing later, when she found herself in the spotlight-call it an inoculation against a swollen head. She was able to stay grounded after the ecstatic reaction following the ravishment scene in Dangerous Liaisons: "I always thought it was an exaggeration, anyway," she says. "I kind of guiltily accepted whatever compliments were extended my way. I mean, it's kind of weird to be complimented on something you don't think is true."

Okay, so that last thought leaves you feeling a little incredulous (and it's not as though her leatherclad-vamp role in next month's The Avengers will stem the tide of admiration-the very name of her coolly crime-solving character, Emma Peel, is a joke on M, or Man, Appeal). But Thurman doesn't notice-she's too busy looking inward, considering the character warping effects of fame: "I didn't have one of those personality-crushing experiences when a person does one movie and is instantly, massively famous and everybody gives them anything they want. When you get these perks more slowly, you appreciate them." With a psychological sophistication her mother would be proud of, she dissects what she perceives to be personality flaws: "I don't think I'm terribly diplomatic. I notice many more times when I've been short with people than when I've been empathetic. I think, Why did I have to say that to that person? What a weird reaction!"

While she's mindful of what appears to be a complex inner life (well utilized in last month's Les Miserables, in which she played the dying prostitute Fantine), Thurman is no agony aunt. She calls herself "a girl" and laughs winningly (or whiningly, actually) when revealing a guilty pleasure. "The secret about me is that I'm a closet fan of so many things." Such as? "I love the cheapness of the original Avengers series. The sets were so bad, you could see through them." Thurman derives a wholly unsubversive pleasure in all performances-good, bad-good, just plain-stinking-bad. "Some of the worst acting you wouldn't even see in a condom ad, I find fascinating," she says. "I'd stick in a video of the worst movie before something good. To the marvel of my friends, I'm an indiscriminate viewer."

Even more surprising, Thurman can't help believing that the stars who play heroes on the big-screen are actually displaying their true essences. "I like to see it that way." For someone whose own life is playing out as a kind of fairy tale, this shouldn't be a stretch

Source: Mademoiselle July 1998