The Star Royal Blood

“We were treated like rock stars!” Four decades on, Carrie Fisher remembers the movie that changed her life. Oliver Pfeiffer has an audience with Her Worshipfulness.

“It’s only been positive,” Carrie Fisher says, with a gleam. “I had a really good time making Star Wars. I was very young and got to be the only girl in an all-boy fantasy so that was fun!”

In the four decades following the release of A New Hope, it’s arguably been Fisher who has remained the most consistently enthusiastic about her time in that galaxy far, far away – even if it’s been by adopting an increasingly sardonic approach toward the franchise that made her a star.

From the beginning, she says, she was blown away by the possibilities of George Lucas’s vision. “I remember I read the script out loud with a friend of mine, Miguel Ferrer, who became an actor. It read fantastic. We both wanted to play the part of Han Solo because that was the best part. I couldn’t imagine how they were going to pull it off [but] I definitely wanted to be in it given that they had a chance at pulling it off.”

As Fisher reveals, it was far from an easy experience for the 19-year-old hired to embody the feistiest of screen princesses. “When I got the part they told me I had to lose 15 pounds so I thought I’d better lose that or they’ll fire me! I kept thinking they would realise they’d made a mistake so I kept very quiet, which, if you know me is unbelievable!”

And as for Leia’s now legendary space buns… “When [George Lucas] said, ‘We’re going to put that awful hairstyle on you,’ I grew to love it. ‘What do you think of this?’ they asked. ‘Do you like it?’ I said, ‘It’s fantastic!’ So that’s why that [hairstyle] exists. I did whatever they said as I kept thinking they’d realise what they’d done and fire me.”