Carrie Fisher's daughter played Princess Leia in 'Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker' thanks to some nifty editing
Carrie Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd had stepped into her mother's shoes to play the role of a young Leia Organa in 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'.
Fisher had been the original Princess Leia but had tragically passed away in 2016. Given that the character of Princess Leia was such an important one, the creators were determined to continue to include her in the films. Instead of getting a new actor to take on the role, director JJ Abrams made use of unused material that Fisher had filmed for 'The Force Awakens' and 'The Last Jedi'.
This process worked out for Abrams until he had to film one scene for the latest release and the creators could not rely on the old footage alone. Abrams decided to keep Leia's role in the family itself and offered up the part to none other than Fisher's daughter, Lourd. Lourd, 27, went on to follow in her mother's footsteps and has been no stranger to the Star Wars franchise.
Lourd has also played the role of Resistance lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix in the sequel trilogy. The 'Scream Queens' actor accepted the role and filmed the scene which was edited so Lourd's face was digitally replaced by a younger version of Fisher. While speaking to Yahoo! News, ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Patrick Tubach shared, "Billie was playing her mother. It was a poignant thing, and something that nobody took lightly – that she was willing to stand in for her mom."
"It was an emotional thing for everybody to see her in that position. It felt great for us, too. If you’re going to have someone play [Fisher’s] part, it’s great that it’s [Lourd] because there are a lot of similarities between them that we were able to draw from. The real challenge was just making the Leia footage we had to work with fit in that scene," Tubach added.
On the other hand, Mark Hamill who plays Luke Skywalker also managed to pull off a young Luke thanks to some de-aging technology.