Carrie Fisher found it "tough" playing Princess Leia.
The late actress was best known for her role as the Rebel Alliance leader in ‘Star Wars’ and her daughter Billie Lourd has now revealed that Carrie found it "hard" at times to "break away" from the part.
Asked how playing Princess Leia affected Carrie, Billie said: "That was hard for her. It’s tough, when you play an iconic character, to break away from it. You have to make sure you have a lot of variety, and make sure you choose roles that aren’t similar to others, or else you get pigeonholed as one thing. I don’t know if I would play a woman in space in a bikini. You also have to be careful about getting oversexualised, and that was hard for her."
And Billie, 25, wants to lead a conversation about mental health and addiction in the hope of reducing the stigma surrounding it.
She added to the new issue of Town and Country magazine: "A lot of people have had experiences like mine, too. Tons of people grow up with mentally ill parents who have drug problems …
"And it’s such a common thing, and people really don’t talk about it. She talked about being mentally ill and having issues with drugs, and a lot of people don’t talk about what it was like growing up with that."
Meanwhile, Billie had previously spoken of the similarities between the ‘Star Wars’ character and her late mother.
She said: "My mom used to say she never knew where Princess Leia ended and Carrie Fisher began. She was imperfect in many ways but her imperfections and willingness to speak about them are what made her more than perfect.
"My mom, like Leia, wasn’t ever afraid to speak her mind and say things that might have made most people uncomfortable. [She was] the strong soldier of a woman who often openly fought her own dark side, knowing early on that we all have a dark side to fight, whatever it may be."
Carrie Fisher found Leia role tough
