Star Wars is one of the most popular movie franchises of all time, with entire generations grown up far, far away. This made its cast household names, including OGs like Mark Hamill and late actress Carrie Fisher. Fans are still mourning her passing, and her friend (and singer) James Blunt claims she was pressured to be thin for the role prior to her death.
The sequel trilogy (which can be streamed with a Disney+ subscription), revealed what the original trio of heroes had been up to since Return of the Jedi. Each movie focused on one of those characters, and Episode IX was going to put Leia in the spotlight before Fisher's death. Her friend James Blunt recently spoke at the Hay Festival (via The Independent) about her final days, offering:
So she was really on a high and a positive, but they had applied a lot of pressure on her to be thin. She spoke about the difficulties that women have in the industry, how men are allowed to grow old, and women are certainly not in film and TV.
Before her passing, Carrie Fisher had been open about losing weight for her return to Leia in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. She claimed that the studio only wanted 2/3 of her body weight in the film, and she did end up dropping a bunch of weight for the sequel trilogy. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to complete that set of movies, as she passed prior to filming The Rise of Skywalker.
The Force Awakens introduced new characters, and paired them with Harrison Ford's Han Solo, who was killed off by Kylo Ren late into the film. The Last Jedi put the spotlight on Luke (although Leia got moments like her infamous space float). Later in his same appearance, James Blunt revealed that he saw Fisher the day before her death. He explained how the pressure to lose weight and have a starring role in Episode IX resulted in her using drugs, as he put it:
And she really put a lot of pressure on herself, started using drugs again and by the time she got on the plane, she had effectively killed herself. They say it was heart failure of some kind, but she had taken enough drugs to have a really good party
In his book Loosely Based on a Made-Up Story, Blunt reportedly revealed that he did drugs with Carrie Fisher during their friendship, including close to her final days. And he seemingly has strong opinions about what was happening at the time, as well as her cause of death.
While Carrie Fisher passed away back in 2016, her fans are still mourning and honoring her legacy. Leia given one more movie thanks to unused footage of the actress from the previous two, and daughter Billie Lourd has continued to speak on her impact. And although fans hearts may be broken, the franchise has left us with these words: no one's ever really gone.
Fisher's tenure as Leia is streaming now on Disney+. The 2024 movie release dates are available for those looking to plan their next trip to the theater.
