The one ‘Star Wars’ scene Carrie Fisher wanted to reshoot
Carrie Fisher rose to global stardom as Princess Leia, one of the lead protagonists in George Lucas’ three original Star Wars movies between 1978 and 1983. After this early peak, Fisher made occasional, often peripheral, appearances on the big screen, including those in Hannah and Her Sisters, The Burbs, When Harry Met Sally, and Soapdish.
Not only did Fisher have the weighty Star Wars typecast to contend with, but her career prospects over the late 1980s and beyond were hampered by a struggle with bipolar disorder and addiction. In the latter years of her life, Fisher received praise for openly discussing her experiences with mental illness and addiction and wrote several highly impactful books, most memorably Postcards from the Edge and Wishful Drinking.
In April 2016, just eight months before her death, aged 60, Fisher participated in a Q&A event at the Tribeca Film Festival. During the interview, Fisher jovially revealed that certain shortcomings in Lucas’ scripts made her pursue her writing career.
Singling out one particularly troublesome line from the franchise’s 1977 debut, Star Wars: A New Hope, Carrie repeated it three times to illustrate its incongruous nature: “I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit.”
Continuing, Fisher revealed that her disdain for the line led her to deliver it in the jarringly contrived British accent heard in the final cut. Elsewhere in the movie, Fisher employed the same accent, subconsciously mimicking those of her British cast mates.
In 2017, Mark Hamill, who portrayed Luke Skywalker opposite Fisher, reflected on his time working on A New Hope during the Star Wars 40-year anniversary celebration show. He recalled that Fisher was particularly dissatisfied with her performance in the scene where she encounters Tarkin on the Death Star.
“Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash,” Leia says in her British accent. “I thought I recognised your foul stench when I was brought on board.”
“I wish I could go back and do that scene again,” Hamill recalls Fisher saying many years later. “I really overdid the English accent,” she added.
Hamill protested as he felt the scene was “perfect,” but Fisher claimed it was because she “was working around all of these English actors.”
“She got self-conscious about it,” Hamill reflected. “That’s what I loved about her.”
Watch Mark Hamill’s full tribute to Carrie Fisher on the Star Wars Celebration Show below.
