PRINCESS LEIA? ‘SHE’S MINE!’
Carrie Fisher talks about reprising her role as Leia Organa in The Force Awakens.
‘I carry her around,’ so she still wears the crown comfortably
Being in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is like a high school reunion in outer space for Carrie Fisher: Everyone’s a little older and the hairstyles are still iffy, but it’s a blast seeing old friends.
“It was fun to do it again. It was like being back on campus,” says Fisher, 59, who reprises her role as Leia Organa, formerly a princess and now a general for the heroic Resistance in director J.J. Abrams’ sci-fi adventure.
In George Lucas’ first Star Wars film in 1977, Leia is young royalty from Alderaan and a face of the fledgling Rebel Alliance when she is captured by the Galactic Empire — by Darth Vader, no less. She is broken out of the Death Star by Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a farm boy who turns out to be her long-lost brother, and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), a smuggler she falls for hard over the course of three movies.
Three decades after the defeat of the Empire, Leia is in charge. But the First Order is a huge cosmic threat, Luke is nowhere to be found, and there’s an estrangement between her and Han.
“She loses everybody. She’s a little bit shut down from that,” Fisher says.
Resting on a hotel bed and petting her sleeping French bulldog, Gary, the actress acknowledges feeling “a little bit daunted” about returning to the Star Wars universe for the first time since 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
“I didn’t know if I could still do it,” she says. “It was a young character. But way deep in your head, we’re permanently young. It’s just shocking when you look in the mirror and say, ‘Who scared me?’
“I carry her around and I know her better than anybody else, and we wear the same clothes a lot of times. She’s mine. She’s mine!”
She doesn't see The Force
Awakens rejuvenating her career — she has worked sporadically in recent years doing voice work on Family Guy, playing herself on
The Big Bang Theory and in the movie Map to the Stars, and having a recurring role on the British sitcom Catastrophe.
While always interested in parts that are well-written, Fisher says she doesn't like looking at herself on screen. “Meryl Streep says it’s because she’s done three movies a year and just watched it go downhill. I went from seeing it whenever the hell that was and now, and it wasn’t a happy surprise.”
What she enjoys now about acting in Star Wars movies is working with a new group of youngsters including Daisy Rid- ley (who plays Rey) and John Boyega (Finn). Fisher finds them more adult and calmer than she, Hamill and Ford were back in the day. Plus, they want to be famous for a multitude of reasons.
“There was none of that” when doing the first Star Wars, Fisher says. Nobody knew it was going to be a blockbuster when filming it, while Ridley and Boyega expect and want The Force Awakens to be huge. “And you just think, ‘Oh, man, wait till you see what’s going to blow into your world.’ ”
She finds herself continually bemused by the scope of Star
Wars as a phenomenon nearly 40 years after she wore a white dress and hair buns. “Star Wars macaroni and cheese! That went a little far for me,” Fisher says.
“People bring me their kids like I’m going to bless them, but they’re like two 2 months old and they’re already in a Princess Leia outfit,” she says.
“I always think they swallowed the outfit and gave birth to the kid wearing the hairy earphones. The kids are born without hair, and that’s embarrassing, so better get the costume now.”
“I didn’t know if I could still do it. It was a young character. But way deep in your head, we’re permanently young.”