Though Carrie Fisher passed away prior to filming beginning, director J.J. Abrams and co. did their best to give Leia a strong presence in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Mostly, deleted scenes from The Force Awakens were repurposed and inserted within the narrative. Maybe the highlight of Leia’s role in TROS, though, was the flashback scene which revealed Luke had trained Leia up as a Jedi after the Original Trilogy.
For this scene, there was really only one person they could ask to play young Leia – Billie Lourd, Fisher’s daughter who also portrays Lieutenant Connix in the sequel movies. As we only found this out after the film came out, though, we haven’t heard much about how this sequence was put together. This week, however, Good Morning America debuted a new clip from the upcoming “Skywalker Legacy” documentary, which features Lourd speaking about stepping into her late mother’s shoes.
This footage also sees Rey actress Daisy Ridley talking about the emotional struggles of having to shoot scenes opposite Fisher, when she’s no longer with us. “The reality of having to do a scene with someone who isn’t actually there was very difficult,” the star admitted. “I sort of had to walk off and have a moment [after filming].”
The flashback sequence was an important one, not only because it offered something fans have been waiting to see for decades, but also because it established that Leia had her own lightsaber, a weapon which proves key in the battle against Palpatine on Exegol. The last time the Resistance general/princess of Alderaan appears in the movie, and likely the franchise, is in the final scene which sees Rey visited by the Force ghosts of Luke and Leia as she buries their lightsabers in the sands of Tatooine.
Be sure to catch “The Skywalker Legacy” and many more special features when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrives on Digital HD on March 17th. The Blu-Ray/DVD is then out on March 31st.
