Mark Hamill and 'Star Wars' cast describe Carrie Fisher's 'phenomenal' final performance in 'The Last Jedi'
When it comes to Star Wars movies, Disney and Lucasfilm go to the ends of the galaxy to keep plot spoilers under wraps, and that includes waiting until the very last minute to screen the film for the press. So when Yahoo Entertainment met with the cast of Star Wars: The Last Jedi over the weekend, we had not yet seen the film … but the stars had. Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, and John Boyega, along with select cast and crew members, were among the first to see the completed film on Friday night.
And they had no problem offering us spoiler-free takes on one of the biggest questions heading into Episode VIII: What was it like to watch the final screen performance of Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa?
“She’s wonderful in the movie,” said Hamill (watch above). “It’s a tremendous loss, there’s no way to sugarcoat it and put a happy face on it. Although I can tell you, she would want us to be laughing and having fun. She wouldn’t want us to be all morose and down. She’d be moved by how missed she is. But you’re going to love her in the movie.”
“And it’s weird, because so much of what happens in the film, it would’ve been emotional anyway,” Ridley teased. “But there is real unplanned poignancy, it’s an emotional one.”
Boyega echoed those sentiments: “It definitely pulls on your heartstrings, it definitely does. There’s no way to separate [it]… And she as an actress does a phenomenal job. The performance is subtle, but her eyes say the most, and that’s the best kind.”
Hamill also explained that Fisher’s iconic character did not get the finale that was originally planned. “The shame is because Harrison was more prominent in [Episode] VII [The Force Awakens], I’m more prominent in VIII, she was meant to be more prominent in IX,” which is going to be the finale of the so-called Skywalker Saga set for a 2019 release.
Asked if Leia gets a good sendoff from the galaxy far, far away, Boyega demurred. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sendoff? Sendoff?”
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