Thanks to the Special Edition of Star Wars Carrie Fisher is back on the big screen again for a short period. Hairdresser experiment Princess Leia tells about the Star Wars phenomenon, George Lucas and her unscrewable head.

"No, but for seven Dollar they let me see it", was the witty reply of Mark Hamill when he was asked if he was involved with the polished up version of the Star Wars trilogy. Of course, George´s clever re-release of the still extremely popular SF-classic costed only a trifle . While nowadays the budget of a big Hollywood movie is dominated by the gigantic salary demands of the actors guild, the entire cast won´t receive a single Dollar from the revenues of the new Star Wars editions.

No wonder that none of them wanted to make an appearance again and talk to the press. Carrie Fisher, a.k.a. Princess Leia Organa, did talk to the press a year ago, when the old versions were released on video for the last time. That was the opportunity for SF Report to sit down at the table with her.

The special editions of Star Wars are the reason that Carrie Fisher wanders over the big screen since a long time, as her acting career is as good as over as far as she is concerned. Instead she has started a new career als a writer of three (autobiographic) best sellers and as a script doctor, somebody who works on problematic scripts. Why this step into another direction? "Well, I didn´t really made a choice", Carrie Fisher confesses. "Little by little one thing took over the other. Another thing that counted was that I had a child, so my body started to expand considerably. I got fatter and fatter, and I already wasn´t the slimmest when I started acting.

I´m someone who can never be a real movie actress, it really requires much discipline physically. And I don´t score high on discipline. Although, with writing I have no cause to complain, but that´s far different from working out in the gym. Actresses who stay in good shape and keep looking good are training about three hours a day. I can´t bear to think about it. Besides, I never really had the passion to make a career as an actress. That was something that happened to me accidentally and when it happened I was too young and unexperienced to cope with it."

You can say that again. After the Star Wars trilogy Mrs. Fisher went downhill rapidly. That is why she hided out in a rehab in the mid-80´s to be treated for her addiction to LSD, coke and other powders and pills. If it was a lucky chance that Fisher made it to an actress, what came over George Lucas to cast her as Princess Leia? "I am a weird one to cast anyway, not particularly `the girl nextdoor`. So well, then there is a bizarre logic to cast me as a space princess.

Why George wanted me? Because I´m strong and strange. I have a bossy appearance, and I think that he was looking for that, a slightly maternal appearance. And of course because I fitt in well with Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill. I look like I can command those two guys.  And that´s what I did, and enjoyed, she laughs.

When I see the movies back again, memories are rivived spontaneously, i.e. how the atmosphere on the set was. Take for example the `Cloud City´-sequence from The Empire Strikes Back. I remember very well that Harisson and I had stayed up all night and that we had drunk a lot. I hadn´t even seen my bed. I swear that if you see that scene it is the only one in which we are smiling. We hadn´t even had the time to develop a hangover, we were still dead drunk during the takes. I was standing there giggling girlishly, which of course didn´t fit in my stern role at all.

In another scene I still remember that I had a very difficult speech. I stood there in a huge circle of pilots and say something like "the ion canon will fire several times" and that kind of nonsence. It was very hard to learn this dialogue by heart because it´s very unnatural technobabble. So at the end of that speech, which wasn´t quite natural, I say `bla bla bla...UNDERSTOOD? GOOD LUCK THEN!´ out of pure relief. I just couldn´t believe that I got all that nonsence out of my mouth. Now you mustn´t think that I watch those movies over and over again at home. But I try to make my daughter see them. When she was two I let her see a part of The Empire Strikes Back, ´cause that´s my favorite by far, but she found that too scary."

Carrie Fisher has mixed feelings about the flood of Star Wars merchandise. "My ex-husband pricked needles in it every time we had a fight", she once said about the Princess Leia actionfigure. "But the most bizarre merchandise item I´ve ever seen is the Leia shampoo. In order to get the shampoo out, you had to screw off my head first. Well thank you!!" Well, to be honest we don´t find a shampoo-version so far-fetched, if you take in consideration the eccentric hairdo´s with which Carrie Fisher dressed out as Princess Leia. "But those weren´t my ideas. I agreed with it only because I was so happy that I got the part. It has to be said that the hairdresses get better each sequel.

Those knots in the first movie were most bizarre by far. And most painful. As you can see, the bumps that were beside of my head back then, are now here", Fisher says while she points at her waist and bottom. At that time I didn´t dare to say anything about those hairdo´s, because I was deadly afraid that George would realise that he hired the wrong person and that he would replace me with Jodie Foster. But I have to give a credit for him, those are the things that people keep remembering.

So it was another strong sample of fantasy of George, no doubt based on a mix of Aztekian and Swedish elements, or something like that. But it wasn´t really comfortable to wear. George did ask me if I liked it. ` Sure´, I said, `whatever you want, George...´"

Translated from Dutch into English by Birgitte S.C.