"George Lucas ruined my life."
"George Lucas ruined my life."
Nov 24The Mail is running excerpts of Carrie Fisher’s new autobiography, which is sharp. Raaaaazor sharp. And like every good nerd, I’m skipping to the bits about Star Wars. I was rather hoping she really meant that George Lucas ruined her life and was mad about it, but it’s mostly a haw-haw, teasing proclamation. Too bad.
I’m adding bold to my favorites;
George Lucas ruined my life. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Even now, many years later, people are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big a hit. Yes, of course I knew. We all knew.
The only one who didn’t was the director, George Lucas. We kept it from him because we wanted to see what his face looked like when it changed expression.
Not only was he virtually expressionless in those days, but he also hardly talked at all. His only two directions in the first film were ‘faster’ and ‘more intense’.
Shortly after I arrived, he gave me this unbelievably idiotic hairstyle. He said in his little voice: ‘Well, what do you think of it?’
I was terrified I was going to be fired for being too fat, so I said: ‘I love it.’ Yeah, right.
When I got this great job to end all jobs, which truly I never thought I would get because there were all these other beautiful girls who were up for the part – Amy Irving, Jodie Foster, Teri Nunn – they told me I had to lose 10lb.
I weighed about 105lb at the time but carried about 50 of those in my face.
So you know what a good idea would be? Give me a hairstyle that further widens my already wide face.
Remember the white dress I wore all through that film? George came up to me the first day of filming, took one look at the dress and said: ‘You can’t wear a bra under that dress.’
‘OK, I’ll bite,’ I said. ‘Why?’ And he said: ‘Because … there’s no underwear in space.’
He said it with such conviction. Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn’t see any bras or panties anywhere.
He explained. ‘You go into space and you become weightless. Then your body expands but your bra doesn’t, so you get strangled by your own underwear.’
I think that this would make for a fantastic obituary. I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.
Instead of a bra, what do you think I wore for support, intergalactically? Gaffer tape.
I used to think there should have been a contest at the end of the day for who in the crew would get to help remove the tape.
George is a sadist. But despite having to wear a metal bikini, being chained to a giant slug (Jabba the Hutt) and often being about to die, I kept coming back for more.
Why, you might ask. Well, George is a visionary, right? The man has transported audiences the world over and has provided Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford and myself with enough fan mail – and even a small, merry band of stalkers – to keep us entertained for the rest of our lives.
And don’t forget, George was the man who made me into a little doll. A doll that one of my exes could stick pins into whenever he was annoyed with me (I found it in a drawer).
He also made me into a shampoo bottle where people could twist off my head and pour liquid out of my neck. Paging Dr Freud!
And then there was a soap with the slogan: ‘Lather up with Leia and you’ll feel like a Princess yourself.’
The nice people at Burger King made me into a watch. And I’m a little stumpy Lego thing. And now there’s even a stamp, which is totally cool.
Among George’s many possessions, he owns my likeness, so that every time I look in the mirror I have to send him a couple of bucks. That’s partly why he’s so rich.
Good stuff…I’m probably one of the few Star Wars fans to whom these anecdotes are a bit old hat; I’ve heard that “mirror” line in two or three places.
My hope is that since it’s just an excerpt, there’s at least a whole chapter in the book chronicling Fisher’s days of wine and cocaine in England filming ESB and shacking up with a married Harrison Ford. OR details on her rumored uncredited rewrite on Episode I.
Some of the lines may be old, but I know how the movie dialogue too. She’s awesome and I’m glad they’re in a book for eternity.
I might have to buy this book now. Dammit.
I’d heard a couple of them myself, like the “again” and “more intensity”, but there was a lot of it I hadn’t heard – it will be nice, as was mentioned, to have it all in one book rather than scattered across various interviews.