Kate Beckinsale: Uma Thurman is my fairy godmother after helping me find my feet

Kate Beckinsale says Uma Thurman is her “fairy godmother” after she allowed the actress to stay in her cockroach-infested home while she was finding her feet in Hollywood.

The 48-year-old actress credits the ‘Kill Bill’ star with giving her the ability to kickstart her acting career after she offered up her unused home for Kate, her then-partner Michael Sheen, and their baby daughter – now 22-year-old Lily – to live in when they first moved to America.

Kate joked the home was infested with “a lot of cockroaches” and was “falling apart”, but gave the actress a place to stay while she found her feet and made a name for herself.

She said: “We got out there and Michael hadn’t really got it together to find us somewhere to live and so Uma Thurman… casually… went, ‘Well I’ve got a brownstone I’m not using’. So I kind of went ‘Oh, okay!’

“There were a lot of cockroaches, but it was this incredibly grand, sort of falling apart … in the West Village. I think James Gandolfini bought it while we were still living there.

“But we were just these t**** from England who hadn’t really got it together.

“There was a lot of wildlife in it. It was a kind of crumbling situation, but it was so nice of her and it really rescued us and sometimes she’d come and visit and it would feel like the Queen arrived. She is just so incredible because she got it furnished. She’s like a fairy godmother, royal family, she’s amazing.”

Kate got to know Uma when they filmed period drama ‘The Golden Bowl’ in 1999, and she moved to New York with Michael just a few months after their daughter was born when he landed a Broadway role in ‘Amadeus’.

And the ‘Jolt’ star admitted the move was a gamble, as she said she was worried about travelling across the world with a young baby.

She added to the Sunday Mirror newspaper: “[It was] sort of against my wishes because I had just had a baby and was like, ‘Do I want to move to New York? I don’t know anyone really … you’re going to be by yourself with a baby’.”

Kate and Michael eventually split in 2003 after eight years together, but have remained close friends ever since.

She said earlier this month: “He’s someone I’ve known since I was 21. I love him a lot. I especially think if you have kids with someone you try and focus on all the good bits.

“Also, when you’re not in a relationship with someone any more, 90 percent of the stuff that’s so bothersome and tricky is not, because you’re not having to live with them.

“It doesn’t seem like a big deal but once you get out of a marriage and you don’t ever find yourself saying ‘I don’t mind’ and you’re doing what you like, it is amazing. I highly recommended it.”