Every diehard Star Wars fan knows May the 4th is a special day. Refrains of “May the fourth be with you” are ping ponging around the internet, in Discord chat rooms, and subreddits of all shapes and sizes. While it’s a celebratory day, this year is a little more serious than usual because it’s the day the late Carrie Fisher got her Star on the Hollywood Walk of fame. Fortunately, Mark Hamill gave a beautiful speech to help us get through it.
Variety shared a live stream of the event, and Hamill was one of the first speakers. There’s been some controversy around the ceremony involving Fisher’s siblings, who were not invited to attend the ceremony by Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd. That’s not what this is about, though.
“Today, May the 4th be Carrie Frances Fisher Day,” Hamill said to thunderous applause. Hamill explained that he “met Carrie when she was 19 years old” and he was a “worldly 24.” They had a dinner together to get to know each other, and Hamill said “every expectation I had [of Carrie] was just obliterated.”
“She was so charming, so funny, so adorable, so wise beyond her years. I just couldn’t believe it. And brutally frank. She started telling me stories – intimate stories, about her family that had me thinking, ‘should I be hearing this?’ … But that was Carrie.”
Hamill praised her wisdom “far beyond what a 19-year-old is expected to have.” Hamill shared that when he was preparing the speech he was worried that he wouldn’t have the words to do the star, who passed away at age 60 in 2016, “justice.”
Hamill then pulled out a notebook and shared something he wrote “six years ago,” when she died.
“Carrie was one of a kind who belonged to us all whether we liked it or not. She was our princess, dammit, and the actress who played her blurred into one gorgeous, fiercely independent, and ferociously funny take-charge woman who took our collective breath away.”
Hamill’s voice wavered as he tried to get through the reading. While he acknowledged it was an emotional event, he wanted to let everyone know that Fisher wouldn’t have wanted a dour event in her honor.
“She wouldn’t want us to be sad,” he said. “She’d want us to have fun.”
You can watch the whole Walk of Fame ceremony here. RIP Carrie Fisher, she really was our princess.
Published: May 4, 2023 05:02 pm