I was going to deal with Carrie Fisher’s death by avoiding social media and my feelings. All three of them. (Me and Carrie have the same amount of feelings, you see.) It seemed like an emotionally healthy and less tear-filled way to deal with the death of one of my heroes. But, Carrie was a writer, and I think she would rather I write my feelings out than keep them bottled up inside. It’s lucky for you all that this is online rather than in my journal. My little notebook became rather tear-stained after writing this and you would have barfed from the cliche. And I can’t have my dear readers vomiting. Especially when reading about such an extraordinary woman. Carrie Fisher was a writer, an actress, a script doctor, an advocate and acomedienneexdrodinare. Her openness, her clear turns of phrase and her talent not only made us love her, but relate to her. So here’s to Carrie Fisher, our princess, general and heroine! Without further delay, here are 9 reasons we love Carrie Fisher!
Her Wicked Sense of Humor
It’s hard to pinpoint one instance where Carrie made us laugh the most. Throughout her lifetime, she was always a funny and bright presence to everyone, even to people who just knew her through her work. She was unafraid to speak her mind, to hilarious result. Her interview with Good Morning America made headlines last year. She opened the interview by saying, “I wouldn’t be anywhere at this hour… except on TV.” She talks about her dog, The Force Awakens and being a woman in Hollywood over fifty. The interview continues with her giving hilarious quips such as “[The Force Awakens] is really good. And I think in my mouth so I don’t lie.” More hilarious quotes are in the interview, but I can’t write them all out. I’m trying not to cry here! Besides, seeing Carrie in her element is a thousand times better than reading about it. So check out the interview, I promise you will not regret it!
Her Mental Health Advocacy
Carrie had never shied away from the fact that she struggled with bipolar disorder. She said in an interview with ABC “I outlasted my problems I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I’m still surviving it, but bring it on. Better me than you.” In her memoirs she writes about her self-medication attempts with cocaine and other drugs. Mental illness and drug addiction is still highly stigmatized today. I saw people speaking derisively about her struggles on Facebook and Twitter. These people don’t seem to know how hard it can be to struggle with mental illness, especially when coupled with drug addiction. But to those of us who do know, she inspired us to be confident in ourselves, to be unafraid to speak our truths. She was a role model for everyone struggling with mental illness and for speaking out for ourselves.
Her roasting of George Lucas
George Lucas ruined her life, by her own admission and she would never let him off the hook for it. Her speech at AFI’s Lifetime Achievement Award (for which George Lucas was the winner), she lets him have it. She brought up the fact that she was chained to Jabba the Hutt, all the stalkers she and her co-stars got and the fact that she wasn’t allowed to wear a bra. That last point was a particular point of contention. Carrie always thought it was silly that she couldn’t wear a bra while being Princess Leia. The explanation that a bra would strangle her didn’t really hold water with her, even as a nineteen-year-old. She said of that, “I want it reported that I was drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.” Carrie Fisher saw the sillier side of life, and the sillier side of her boss and she was never afraid to tell him about it.
Her amazing writing
Carrie has left us with five amazing books; Postcards from the Edge, Surrender the Pink, The Best Awful, Wishful Drinking and The Princess Diarist. The first three were fictional, but drew on events in her life. As I Googled her books, the searched engine corrected my search from “has written” to “had written.” That hurt my heart more that a little bit. The last two were straight up memoirs, exploring her life in detail. I’ve started The Princess Diarist, an edited collection of Carrie’s diaries from the Star Wars set. It’s hilarious and full of tidbits that are surprising and funny. Did you know that Carrie auditioned for the movie Carrie but did not get the part as the title role? Carrie wrote with the candor and hilarity you can expect from Carrie. Her writing talents even translated to film! She wrote the screenplay for Postcards on the Edge. The film was released in 1990 and starred Meryl Streep as the analogue of Carrie and Shirley MacLaine as the analogue to Carrie’s mother, Debbie Reynolds.
Her strong editing abilities
Even though Carrie is better known as an actress, she made a name for herself as a Hollywood script doctor. She would go over scripts and change dialogue, tighten the plot and improve the movies overall. She worked on Sister Act, Hook, The Wedding Singer, and Lethal Weapon 3. She even did work on Star Wars movies, editing her own dialogue and insisting on stronger moments for Leia. She even tried to salvage The Phantom Menace from it’s clunky, over expository dialogue. But not even the power of Carrie Fisher could save that film. Sadly, we will never know how far Carrie’s influence extended in the script doctoring field. Most editors of Hollywood screenplays go uncredited and this includes Carrie, despite her fame, connections and talent. She stopped script doctoring before her death, unfortunately. She said of the industry now, “Now in order to get a rewrite job, you have to submit your notes for your ideas on how to fix the script. So they can get all the notes from all the different writers, keep the notes and not hire you. That's free work and that's what I always call life-wasting events.” While we miss her editing, who can blame her for quitting a job like that!
Her kindness to Warwick Davis
Some of the most heartwarming stories from the Star Wars set come from Warwick Davis, the actor who played Wicket the Ewok. He reported that Carrie was very kind to him on set. He was about eleven during shooting of Return of the Jedi, and by his account, Carrie took very good care of him and probably indulged him a little too much! She checked in with him while he wore his Ewok suit, making sure he wasn’t hot or uncomfortable inside of it. She would feed him chocolate milk and cookies through the suit! I have to wonder if his mother approved of all that sugar. Regardless of whether young Warwick’s mother approved or nor, Warwick Davis still remembers Carrie fondly. He tweeted, “Princess Leia, @carrieffisher now one with the Force. Your kindness & sharp wit will be missed. #RIP PS: Thanks for the milk & cookies. Xx.” While we all miss Carrie, it’s good to know that we’re not alone in our grief.
Gary!
No list about our favorite things about Carrie would be complete without mentioned her loyal service dog, Gary the French Bulldog and his magnificent tongue. In the past couple of years, where there was Carrie, there was Gary by her side. He trotted by her side down streets, home and red carpet alike. He stayed by her side during her heart attack. ‘Till the end Gary kept Without him we would have the amazing interviews and insights she gave over the past few years. Not to mention his awesome Twitter and Instagram accounts! He meant a lot to Carrie and wonderful that she got to have him in her life. In 2013, when Gary was only one year old she said to the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fla., "Gary is like my heart. Gary is very devoted to me, and that calms me down. He’s anxious when he’s away from me." Carrie and Gary had a wonderful, loving time together. Without a doubt, he will miss her as much as we do.
Those hair buns
Those hair buns. I can practically hear Carrie yelling from the grave about how awful those hair buns were. She insisted throughout her life that they were a terrible hair style. She joked with People, that if she gave away secrets for The Force Awakens, “I would have been sentenced to wear that awful hairstyle from the first film.” No one wore their hair like that and they emphasized her chubby cheeks, which she was a little insecure about. But Carrie, we loved that hairstyle. Countless people have styled their hair like Leia’s, putting them up into the “cinnamon buns.” And as revealed in the Princess Diarist, she was the one who picked out the hair buns on each side! Her hair dresser went through many styles, and she picked out that one as the least awful. Which doesn’t speak well to the other hairstyles offered.
She embraced Star Wars, knowing how important it was to people
Despite all the crap she got for being in Star Wars, Carrie never rejected that part of her life. She never quite escaped the recognition she got for being Leia, and despite all her other accomplishments, that’s what we know her best as. Carrie made fun of Star Wars, and George Lucas, sure. But she also called him an innovator and a great artist. She knew she was in something special. She even joked on Ellen, “I was disappointed. I was expecting [Star Wars] to be bigger.” She did exactly love Princess Leia, because being Princess Leia was part of her own self. And she advocated for the character strongly. She fought against the gold bikini, tried to change the corny lines as said before, and considered herself the custodian of the character. Carrie knew how important the franchise and Princess Leia were to the rest of us, and fought to make the films as fun and well-crafted as they could be. The franchise would be lesser without her.