When Carrie Fisher died in December 2016, she’d finished shooting her scenes for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but had yet to begin on Rise of the Skywalker, meaning unused footage of the actress would have to be used to bring her back to life in the finale of the Skywalker saga.
Now, Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd, who has appeared in the last three main Star Wars films as Lt. Connix, has revealed how excited her mother was about The Rise of Skywalker before she passed away.
The plan was for each of the original Star Wars actors to have a film that focused on their character, so Harrison Ford’s was The Force Awakens, Mark Hamill’s was The Last Jedi, and Fisher’s was meant to be Rise of the Skywalker.
In a tribute to her mother for Time, Lourd wrote, “We wrapped The Last Jedi a little less than six months before she died. I went back to L.A. to film the show I was on, and she stayed in London to film the show she was on.
“One of the last times we spoke on the phone, she talked about how excited she was that the next movie in the trilogy was going to be Leia’s movie. Her movie.”
Lourd recalled how as a child she didn’t want to watch Star Wars because it was “too loud” and only decided to give it a go when boys began coming up to her at school saying they fantasised about her mother.
“I had to investigate who this person was they were talking about,” she wrote.
After watching the movie and realising how widespread the love for Leia was, she finally understood how special the whole thing was.
She added, “I realized then that Leia is more than just a character. She’s a feeling. She is strength. She is grace. She is wit. She is femininity at its finest. She knows what she wants, and she gets it. She doesn’t need anyone to defend her, because she defends herself. And no one could have played her like my mother. Princess Leia is Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher is Princess Leia. The two go hand in hand.”
Yep, we’re definitely crying…