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.

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“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!”