Uma Thurman is a Super Ex

Uma Thurman is flying high in her latest film "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," a romantic comedy that is so much a fraction of "Superman" and "Fatal Attraction."

The funniest film of the summer in the U.S., the movie stars Uma Thurman as Jenny Johnson, aka G-Girl, a beautiful caped crusader who has met the man of her dreams in Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson). But instead of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins-girl fashion, the film deconstructs a relationship between two people who never should have gotten together.

Q:What's your take on Jenny/G-Girl from your previous roles?

A:"I loved the idea that Jenny is neurotic, vulnerable and a superhero," says the actress. "I've never had more fun making a movie," I love doing comedy - it's a passion of mine. You don't often see a female lead like Jenny. She's angry almost all the time, and that was great fun to play. (Director) Ivan Reitman encouraged me to play Jenny as broadly as possible, and to take the risk of making the character seem like a fool."

Q:Do you think there's so much superhero movies coming out right now?

A:I think that one of the great things about the script that unlike the typical valiant type superhero that's like 'Oh, yes, I must go save the world' unlike that there's a whole comedy base here with the reality of it all. Here's this girl like any of us who stumbles on a rock, and by the way she says girl because she is girl and so if she called herself woman at seventeen she would have a problem, but she really is more tense than kryptonite. She's just a real person. She wants to have a real life. She just deals with her responsibility of having superpowers, but she really resents it. I guess that's the humor in the piece.

Q:Are you into comedies now because you seem to be focusing on that a lot lately?

A:I've been trying to bust into the comedy my business my whole life. So, thank God for Ivan [Reitman] giving us a chance to all have great roles. It's hard in Hollywood to do different things. It's a struggle. I love comedy and comedy is drama. I don't approach it any different. I'm not a comedian. I'm not a standup. I just do it like a part and personally I love to watch comedies and if you don't get to do what you like to watch you get frustrated.

Q:Any difficulty shooting this special FX-laden film?

A:It's actually a movie that was tremendous fun. A lot of movies are just straight dramas and you're sitting there and talking. A lot of movies you're just beating someone up for many months or in some cases other activities, but in this movie we had like a really good breakup. We would have days of doing just really wonderful characters scenes that could be not necessarily in the context of the superhero world, just classic type romantic comedy or drama, just talking and then other days we would be flying around New York City swinging him by the pants off of a crane on 54th Street. So that's a nice change up, a nice body to that. It was fun.

Q:How do you keep yourself in shape to do these kinds of things?

A:The hours that I work out everyday. They had to stop shooting so that I could do sit-ups. I never sit down. That's my main form of exercise.

Q:Would you have changed anything in the script to define your character?

A:For me it's pretty much that I see women as incredibly strong and incredibly intense and balanced creatures for the most part. I rarely meet a meek woman anymore. We're really just fully up with what's going on. I mean, a lot of people asked me if I had changed the character and I have to say that Don wrote this girl and I pretty much played her straight off of the page. I thought that she was a wonderfully drawn character. I think that women are stronger than they're presented to be and I think that men are more sensitive and complicated than how they're presented to be. So, yeah, I think that we're just kind of like that. To me it's completely normal to look at a strong woman character. I find it more odd that there are less represented in movies than the other way around.

UMA THURMAN has proven herself to be one of the most versatile young actresses by playing a variety of compelling characters. Thurman's entrance onto the mainstream film scene began with "Johnny Be Good", opposite Anthony Michael Hall. But it was her role as the goddess Venus in Terry Gilliam's 1988 fantasy "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" which brought her international attention. This striking and versatile actress went on to receive critical acclaim for her portrayal of a virginal 18th century convent girl, Cecile de Volanges, seduced by John Malkovich in Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liasons".

In 1996, Thurman received an Academy Award nomination for Quentin Tarantino's critically lauded "Pulp Fiction", in which she played Mia Wallace, a sexy and comedic mobster's wife. Thurman next appeared in "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," "Batman & Robin", "Gattacca," opposite Ethan Hawke, "Les Miserables" with Liam Neeson and "The Avengers." She also starred alongside Ben Affleck in the John Woo thriller "Paycheck"; starred with Meryl Streep in "Prime"; and starred with John Travolta and Danny DeVito in "Be Cool", the sequel to "Get Shorty".

MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND opens August 16 in theaters nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.