Hollywood star Uma Thurman has revealed she cannot wait to begin work on the next Kill Bill movie – the intense samurai training she endures push her into the best shape of her life.

The actress spent months mastering her martial arts skills with professional stuntmasters to play The Bride, a killer assassin, in the first two instalments of Quentin Tarantino’s action franchise.

And now she is ready to kick off the gruelling sessions for a third time – even though she admits she was pushed to the extreme.

Thurman said: “They train you so hard that when you come to shooting, it’s actually quite comfortable.

“It’s not the same as real kung-fu, and I could not defend myself now if someone picked a fight!

“It was a transforming experience; I was part of a fight team for almost nine months, and that changed my life.

“They taught me to work harder than I had ever done before, physically, and it’s an incredible thing to discover that your breaking point is actually much higher than you think. It’s a great gift.

“It did change my life back then. Not that I’m changed still; I’m back to being the bum that I was! But I do miss it, and hopefully I’ll get back on the stick one day.

“I’d never pushed myself to those extremes before. It was like surviving a kind of war; it felt like basic training in Vietnam.

“It was an emotional and physical thing – the envelope of the work sprawled and grew and changed, almost out of control.”