[IMG:L]There aren’t many opportunities to interview legends of Hollywood anymore. Sometimes they write an autobiography and do press for it, and sometimes they do one last glory project. For Carrie Fisher, who only acts now in cameo roles, it took a film festival to earn Hollywood.com an audience with filmdom’s reigning space princess.
At the Bermuda International Film Festival, Fisher served as a juror of competition films. She also participated in a panel discussion with fellow legend Richard Dreyfuss for the benefit of festival attendees. Happy to talk about that space trilogy, or at least resigned to the inevitable questions, Fisher had plenty of great stories about that and other Hollywood history for the fans.
Hollywood.com: What are your duties as a juror here?
Carrie Fisher: Well, we just have to see eight films, I think it’s eight, something like that in five days so it’s a lot of watching films. And missing seeing Bermuda.
HW: Is it a big responsibility? What do you look for?
CF: A good film. No more than anybody else would look for. Something that they would enjoy seeing.
HW: What would you like to see here in Bermuda if you have time?
CF: The oldest church and the smallest drawbridge and the pink sand. I haven’t seen anything. I’ve seen nothing. So ANYTHING.
HW: What are some other places you like to travel?
CF: London is my favorite place but I like to go anywhere. I’ve been traveling to Asia quite a bit of late. The Maltese and Cambodia, China, things like that. I work for the New York Times Travel section, so I was doing articles for them. I’ve always been a big traveler.
[IMG:R]HW: Is it true you never wanted to become an actress in the first place?
CF: Well, I grew up in a family where there were celebrities, so I didn’t have any illusions about it. It was more a reality for me. I watched my parents’ celebrity diminish as I grew older, so really it was the first thing I was aware of: the heartbreak of celebrity and the sort of mad scramble to keep it going, to keep one’s job alive and that it was a passive profession. You had to sort of get permission from others to do your job. That there was an anxiety level associated with it, so I did not look at films and think, “Gosh, that would be [great].” I saw that. I liked the product very much but I saw what it did to people.
HW: And what a first movie to do, Shampoo?
CF: Yeah, but that happened quite by accident. We had a friend staying in our house and he said, “Come on to the set with me and meet Warren Beatty,” George Furth who had a little part in it. “And maybe there’s a part in it for you.” It was sort of like a goof. “Okay, I’ll go to the set.” I went to the set and they gave me a part. It happened so quickly and it does not happen like that. It was fun. So I did it kind of like the sort of fun thing that I did, but I didn’t take it seriously and it was not a goal of mine.
HW: With Star Wars becoming such a phenomenon, how do you feel that the slave costume in Jedi still inspires kids today?
CF: How does it inspire them? For young boys to disappear in the bathroom? You know what? It’s a film that kids like, a lot of kids like. It’s weirder when you see an adult put the outfit on and say, “I named my children Luke and Leia” or whatever the other names. That’s stranger. But it’s a film people really enjoy, so that’s nice.
HW: Since you didn’t want fame, what was it like for Star Wars to become so big and make you famous? Was it frightening or exciting?
CF: Both. Nothing is just one thing, you learn as you get older. So I got to travel a lot, I got to meet some great people. I knew what it was going to be so from the beginning, I thought, “Okay, when is this going to end?” You make good money. I don’t think I was ever really taken seriously as an actress, certainly not for that. It was an amazing experience, certainly unlike any other experience that you could have. And just because it wasn’t a goal of mine doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it. It was just I know a lot of people go into show business because they think it’s going to solve something for them. Like as soon as all these people like me, then I’ll like myself. Things like that, as soon as I’m appreciated on that big of a scale, then my life will work. But if you go in it for those reasons, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. But people go in young enough, nobody’s life works at that age, or few people anyway.
HW: What are your favorite moments from the Star Wars films?
CF: I was a very, very young girl so I had fun. I had a tendency to have fun. And in other ways, it was like a real job. I don’t like waking up at five o’clock in the morning, having a two hour hairstyle put on. So there was a lot of it I didn’t like. Same thing all through show business. I didn’t like wearing a lot of [gear] but we had fun. We went to lunches with people in strange clothes. So a lot of it was a lot of fun.
HW: You liked the dialogue too, right?
CF: His dialogue is so bad that we used to say you can type this shit but you cannot say it. It was just awful.
HW: Did you watch the prequels and think, “Oh, that’s why Darth Vader was the way he was in our films?”
CF: Oh yeah, I sat there and was just astonished, and cared so much. No, but my parents are better looking than I am which upset me. No, I didn’t think that but I like the last one a lot, ish.
HW: Why did you like Revenge of the Sith more?
CF: It had more drama to it, a lot more character development and everything and I like that.
HW: Have you been approached for the Star Wars TV show? Would you play Leia again?
CF: Would I step back into that role? No, but I got the wig and love wearing it. I think now it’s kitsch. It’s like 30 years later and it kind of looks good.
HW: Do you really?
CF: I don’t have the wig. I have a wig, but not the wig. I didn’t go, a friend of mine went into a costume store and bought the princess Leia wig and I wore it at my last birthday party. I felt enough time’s elapsed. My daughter thought it was funny. You have to go for it fully.
HW: Now you’re in Fanboys, which is another film about Star Wars. What do you play in that?
CF: God, you know – I think I play sort of a nurse and they’re trying to get out of a hospital. I don’t know because I only did it for a day I think. I can barely remember the last book I read, so…
HW: When you do a movie like that or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, do you feel a sense of hero worship from the directors?
CF: Not hero worship. Especially not with Kevin Smith, who’s a very edgy individual. But he’s a smart fellow. I more worked with the druggie one, the long-haired guy. We talked about heroin a lot. I wasn’t there that long. I was mostly with Jason Mewes.
HW: But the attitude of the filmmakers, they want you because they love these films?
CF: I try to ignore that element of it. It’s nice. They admire the film, so that really wasn’t something that I was not the filmmaker, so they admire George [Lucas]. I was in the film so they have some questions for me. I can answer those questions and then really it’s not going to be a long, long conversation that I’ll have 30 years later.
HW: Are you still doing script doctor work?
CF: Some. I just finished adapting my last book for HBO which is going to be a four-hour thing next year.
HW: You’ve acted, written and sang. What has been your favorite career?
CF: Well, not singing. Writing probably, because it’s mine. With acting, you’re doing other people’s material. And again, it was my accidental profession but I like performing. I just did a one woman show and I liked doing it. That sort of combines the two. I wrote it.
HW: Will they make a tape of that?
CF: No, but I’m going to do it again probably this summer in San Francisco and then I’ll travel with it a bit. They want me to do it in New York but I have to leave my daughter for four months and I don’t know about that. I only have her for about three more years.
HW: You also mentioned you liked Meryl Streep‘s portrayal of you in Postcards from the Edge.
CF: I said I wish she’d gone on playing me. That would be fantastic. I could have taken a break. But that was great.
HW: You were pleased with that film?
CF: It was phenomenal. It was fantastic. There’s no better director than Mike Nichols and no better actress than Meryl. We became good friends.
HW: Was writing for the Oscars like script doctoring since you have to fix problems on the fly?
CF: It’s insane. I used to do it because they paid you with those baskets and now they’ve taken the baskets away so I don’t remember. I didn’t know that. I sort of said yes and then there was no basket. It’s this other kind of writing that’s very, very odd. Just you hear that stuff that they say. It’s very stilted and you have to tailor it to the actor. Mainly, there’s a head writer who’s Bruce Vilanch and he’s done it for so many years that he really sort of governs the whole tone of it and everything.
HW: After all these years, do you still love movies?
CF: Oh yeah. I mean, I love movies and always loved movies. I grew up with the movies. I love movies. I’m a good audience.
HW: Even though it was your accidental profession, what was your favorite acting experience?
CF: Well, The ‘Burbs. I had a really good time with Tom Hanks and everybody on that. I used to go on the set on my day off. So I just loved hanging around the set. And I loved how Woody Allen directed. That doesn’t mean that he and I had a fabulous relationship, but it meant that he was an incredibly interesting director. Maybe the most interesting that I worked with.
HW: How so?
CF: He lets you say whatever you want kind of. He only does a master so there’s no intercutting. So you overlap like people do when they talk. Or he’ll put a camera right there and then you walk in and out of the camera as though that’s sort of a person watching also. It’s just very, very interesting, unlike anybody else.
HW: How about When Harry Met Sally?
CF: I had a good time on When Harry Met Sally. It was sort of boys and girls on that one so I was mainly with Meg [Ryan]. And Rob [Reiner] and Billy [Crystal] and Bruno [Kirby] all knew each other before, in a good way. It was a fantastic script.
