THE script for the movie Prime, in which she plays a divorced woman who finds love with a housepainter 14 years her junior, had special resonance for Uma Thurman.

She was going through the break-up of her marriage to actor Ethan Hawke, with whom she has two children, at the time.

"Obviously it's very well known I went through a divorce, and so I felt I understood the character very sympathetically, very much, " she says.

"Coming out of marriage in your mid-thirties, it's an interesting place to be. When I was reading this character, I felt excited by seeing somebody else going through something I could relate to. It made me a little less alone.

"I haven't been single since I was 25, and all of a sudden I'm 35 and my life has taken a different turn. It just moved me to see that character. I don't see that character in a movie normally.

Nobody makes a movie about a woman in her mid-thirties who wishes she could have met someone to have children with and still doesn't know where to find a date."

Thurman was married briefly to British actor Gary Oldman before meeting Hawke on the futuristic movie Gattica, so has thoughts on the idea that life isn't necessarily about happy endings with one mate, but a series of meaningful relationships.

"People are always growing in life and so it's always changing, " she says. "What they need in one moment is different than what they need at another time."

So does she think that love lasts forever? "I don't think it ends, actually. I wish it did, I really do. I wish it would go away sometimes but I don't think it really does. No matter how much I dislike them, I think I still love everybody I ever did love in my life, " she says.

Life experiences give her a different angle on events, but she doesn't make too big a thing about it.

"I don't think it takes a brain surgeon to understand, to read a story. I mean you can read Anna Karenina and you can have some sympathy, can't you? . You can get a little insight into what that's like, " she says.

"That's the wonderful thing about drama and writing and fiction. It's this shared experience that we all have. We can see into each other and into other's lives."

Hollywood has seen her differently since she starred as a tough, sword-wielding woman in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill.

"I've been offered things about hardened, tough, strong women whereas before I was always being chased by a corset. And I had to beat that corset. You know, with a sword, basically."

She likes all kinds of romances. "It's something that always interests me. Drama romance, romance comedy, comedy romance. I also go to the movies to escape. There's a big part of me that does that. There are times when you go to learn, when you go to be moved and times when you go to escape. I personally escape more happily into romance that I do violent movies."