CULTURE

Amandla Stenberg Would Love to Star in Kill Bill: Volume 3, But Should It Even Be Made?

But that's probably up to Uma.

Aug. 14, 2018

Kill Bill was originally envisioned as a single film, but because Quentin Tarantino shot so much footage it was broken up into two parts for release. If Amandla Stenberg has her way, there very well could be a third. The young actress, who will next be seen in The Hate U Give, has her dream role in a potential sequel all mapped out, and it’s a storyline hinted at earlier on in the first film.

If you need a bit of a refresher, in the original Kill Bill, Uma Thurman plays the Bride, a character who was a member of an elite assassination squad that turns on her and leaves her for dead on her wedding day. After recovering, she vows her revenge on her former cohorts, and begins with her wrath set on Vernita Green (played by Vivica A. Fox). Their confrontation ends with Green facedown and dead in her living room, and as Thurman’s character doesn’t realize until afterward, her young daughter, Nikki, witnessed the assassination. “When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting,” Thurman’s character tells the young girl, essentially inviting her to take her shot at revenge one day.

Naturally, Stenberg would very much like the chance to still feel raw.

“The ultimate character I’d love to play is Vivica A. Fox’s daughter in Kill Bill,” Stenberg recently told CinePop, according to IndieWire. “There have been rumors about a potential Kill Bill: Volume 3, and that would just be amazing. It’s my favorite movie. It would be so cool. The Bride tells Vernita’s daughter after she kills [her mother], ‘If you’re salty about this in 10 years, come find me and we’ll work it out.’ ”

Stenberg is not just casting herself in fan fiction, either. Tarantino has openly outlined such a possible plot for a third film. In fact, he first talked about it while the original two were being released.

“I’ve already got the whole mythology: Sofie Fatale will get all of Bill’s money,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “She’ll raise Nikki, who’ll take on the Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as the Bride deserved hers. I might even shoot a couple of scenes for it now so I can get the actresses while they’re this age.”

Tarantino has also talked about the the potential for yet another sequel where two maimed members of the Japan-based Crazy 88 gang also seek their revenge, but it’s the Nikki Green plotline that seems to be more intriguing to fans.

Fifteen years after release, the Kill Bill series still looms large in our culture (just look how often musicians reference the film’s visual vocabulary in music videos), and certainly the trend of reboots, revivals, and long-awaited sequels is all the rage (see the recent news of Jamie Lee Curtis returning to Halloween and Linda Hamilton returning to Terminator).

The future of Kill Bill probably shouldn’t be left up to the audience, studio heads, Stenberg, or even Tarantino, though. Its fate should probably be left solely in the hands of one person: Uma Thurman.

The actress recently revealed that she was injured on set during a driving scene, which she claimed Tarantino pressured her to shoot instead of using a stunt double. The pair were on the outs for several years (with Tarantino hinting as far back as 2004, even as he was talking about a Kill Bill: Volume 3, that there was a reason he wouldn’t be working with Thurman again anytime soon).

Thurman has since signaled that she’s accepted Tarantino’s apology and would be open to working with him again. Whether or not she’d want to resume her role as the Bride remains to be seen.

Still, we could certainly see why Stenberg would want to angle for the role, should the film be made (assuming, of course, the original actress, Ambrosia Kelley, doesn’t come out of nowhere to kill an audition). Depending on your thoughts on Tarantino, it certainly could be interesting to see him work with a new generation of actors as well. Considering that the vast majority of the main characters in the original film were, well, killed, there’d certainly be a lot of roles to fill out.

Perhaps Stenberg’s character forms a new version of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad with, say, Zendaya, Millie Bobby Brown, Hayley Kiyoko, and Naomi Scott.

There is at least one other character who would almost assuredly come back, and likely be played by a new actress: that of the Bride’s own daughter, Bebe. It just so happens that Thurman’s daughter Maya Hawke is not only about the perfect age but recently launched an acting career of her own.