Carrie Fisher Confirms Return As Princess Leia In New ‘Star Wars’ Movie
Carrie Fisher will return as Princess Leia in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII.
Fisher, who played the intergalactic Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan in the original three films — Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of The Jedi — confirmed the news in a Q A interview with Palm Beach Illustrated.
Asked point blank whether she would be reprising her iconic role in the next Star Wars film, Fisher answered with a simple “Yes.”
In typical droll Fisher style, the 56-year-old actress described a comic picture of how she imagined Princess Leia would be today, saying:
“Elderly. She’s in an intergalactic old folks’ home. I just think she would be just like she was before, only slower and less inclined to be up for the big battle.”
Of the side-buns that are so recognizably part of Princess Leia’s style, Fisher jokingly added:
“The bagel buns and the bikini, because probably she has sundowners syndrome. At sundown, she thinks that she’s 20-something. And she puts it on and gets institutionalized.”
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Disney bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas in a $4.05 billion deal finalized in October last year.
Star Wars: Episode VII will be directed by Star Trek director J. J Abrams, with the script penned by Oscar-winning screenwriter Michael Arndt (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Oblivion, Toy Story 3, Little Miss Sunshine), with Lucas serving in a creative consultant role.
With Harrison Ford expected to be returning as bounty hunter Hans Solo and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) recently expressing his desire to do the same, audiences could see the original rebel trio in the new reboot.
Cinema Blend notes that while Star Wars: Episode VII is slated for release in 2015, both Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy have since said that may no longer be the case.
Catapulted to worldwide fame in 1977 when she played the plucky Princess Leia in the first film of the original Star Wars Trilogy, Fisher’s later battle with drug abuse was detailed in her 1987 semi-autobiographical novel Postcards from the Edge. After landing on the New York Times bestseller’s list, the novel was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine in 1990.
The actress, who suffers from bipolar disorder, has since gone on to write other books and screenplays as well as playing minor roles in movies and television shows.
In addition to the planned new trilogy of films Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII and IX, Lawrence Kasdan (who co-wrote 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and 1983’s Return of the Jedi) and Simon Kinberg (co-writer X Men: Days of FuturePast and a producer on X Men: First Class) have been lined up to write stand-alone Star Wars films that will be spinoffs of the main new trilogy.
In February this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed told CNBC that Kasdan and Kinberg are “working on films derived from great Star Wars characters that are not part of the overall saga, so we still plan to make Star WarsVII, VIII and IX roughly over a six-year period of time starting in 2015. But there are going to be a few other films released in that period of time too,” said The Hollywood Reporter.
Speculation about how Princess Leia, twin sister of Luke Skywalker, and Hans Solo will figure in J. J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII has centered on talk about their likely children.
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