Hint: It has to do with feet.

Maya Hawke shares the perfect advice mom Uma Thurman gave her for working with Quentin Tarantino

Hint: It has to do with feet.

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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November 4, 2025 3:35 p.m. ET

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Uma Thurman and her daughter Maya Hawke; Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. Credit:

Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty; Kevin Winter/Getty

Thanks to her mom, Maya Hawke was more than prepared for her brief stint working with Quentin Tarantino.

The actress, who played a member of the Manson Family in *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*, recently reflected on her experience with the filmmaker during a chat on Amy Poehler's *Good Hang* podcast. At one point, Poehler pointed out that Hawke's mom, Uma Thurman, has starred in three of Tarantino's previous films and asked whether she gave her daughter any advice about working with him.

"'Keep your shoes on,'" Hawke replied, playfully addressing the speculation about Tarantino's supposed foot fetish. The response caught Poehler off guard.

"Keep your shoes on," the *Parks and Recreation *alum repeated, fighting back laughter. "Keep them on, baby. Are you gonna try-" Poehler and Hawke then burst into giggles, with the host momentarily speechless by Thurman's words. "Perfect advice," she eventually said. "Perfect."

Maya Hawke and her mother, Uma Thurman.

John Nacion/Variety via Getty

Countless quips have been made about Tarantino's apparent obsession with feet, a theory about the filmmaker that is fueled by moments like the "wiggle your big toe" set piece in *Kill Bill*. Fans have found plenty of "evidence" within his other films, including *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*, which includes a few shots of bare feet. It got to a point where even the stars of Tarantino's films couldn't help but take a few shots at the director.

While accepting the award for Best Supporting Actor at the 2020 Screen Actors Guild, *Once Upon a Tim*e star Brad Pitt jokingly roasted the director for his foot shots. "I want to thank my co-stars," Pitt began, before rattling off the following list: Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Margot Robbie’s feet, Margaret Qualley’s feet, Dakota Fanning’s feet. "Quentin has separated more women from their shoes than the TSA," he concluded.

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For his part, Tarantino has brushed off the jokes, telling GQ in 2021, "I don’t take it seriously." That said, the publication noted that he heaved "a sigh of disappointment that we would even think to ask such a thing," when the question of the supposed foot fetish was raised.

Tarantino added, "There’s a lot of feet in a lot of good directors’ movies. That’s just good direction. Like, before me, the person foot fetishism was defined by was Luis Buñuel, another film director. And Hitchcock was accused of it, and Sofia Coppola has been accused of it."

As for Hawke's actual experience working with Tarantino, she has spoken highly of her time on set, though she only played a small role in the Oscar-winning film.

"It was wonderful," Hawke told* *in 2019. "Quentin is such a brilliant and enthusiastic filmmaker and director. His passion radiates through you. There are very few people who love movies as much as he does."**

Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino at the Fourth Annual Academy Museum Gala held at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Oct. 19, 2024.

Gilbert Flores/WWD via Getty

She added that she's also had the pleasure of not just being directed by Tarantino but "knowing him." This is likely a reference to the fact that her mother has known the filmmaker for decades, after starring in *Pulp Fiction* and his duology,* Kill Bill: Volume I* and *Kill Bill: Volume II.*

The actress and filmmaker had a famously rocky relationship, which Thurman opened up about in a 2018 interview with *The New York Times*, where she shared that Tarantino pressured her into operating a car, which she had been warned was unstable. She said she eventually suffered an injury when she crashed the car. The filmmaker has called the crash "one of the biggest regrets of [his] life" and admitted that "a trust was broken" between them.

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That same year, Thurman told EW that she has since forgiven Tarantino for the incident and even said she would be willing to work with him again "if he wrote a great part" for her.

"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," Thurman said. “We’ve had our fights over the years. 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."**

Watch Hawke's full conversation with Amy Poehler above.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Movies”