Actress Carrie Fisher died today at 60. We talk about how she imbued the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars with an assertiveness that set the tone for the future Star Wars heroines; One of Carrie Fisher's last projects as a writer was the columnist of "Advice from the Dark Side" which ran in The Guardian. We talk with her editor who told us how the actress/memoirist came to pen this column; New York Times co-chief film critic Manohla Dargis joins John Horn to talk about some of the top film stories of the year.
How Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia set the tone for future 'Star Wars' heroines
The actress, screenwriter and memoirist Carrie Fisher died this morning at the age of 60.
Of all the roles she’s played, it’s undeniable that she was best known as the Star Wars heroine, Princess Leia. Fisher was just 19 years old when she stepped into the life-changing role of Princess Leia. At the time, it was a lonely place for women in the Star Wars universe.
But she helped change that and paved the way for heroines like Rey, played by Daisy Ridley in "The Force Awakens" and Jyn Erso played by Felicity Jones in "Rogue One."
In a piece for The Ringer, Alison Herman writes about Carrie Fisher’s impassioned role in the franchise. She talked to The Frame about Fisher's role in shaping Princess Leia, and her powerful influence on the franchise's relationship to female characters.
ON PREPARING FOR THE ROLE THEN AND NOW
Fisher is also known as a memoirist–her most recent book, The Princess Diarist, was published just a few months ago to coincide with the release of Rogue 1, the newest Star Wars epoch. The book details her experiences on set, as well as what she did to prepare for her break-out part as the film's heroine.
When George Lucas offered her the role, it was on the condition that she should lose 10 pounds before she showed up on set in London, which is fairly routine, but she was already 110 pounds. And I don’t think anyone would describe a 19-year-old Carrie Fisher as overweight. And so to prepare for the role, she went to what she called a “fat farm” in Texas. Lady Bird Johnson was also a patient there, and she tried and ultimately didn’t lose the 10 pounds, but that’s what she was asked to do before stepping in front of the camera.
The contrast between that and the many videos you see of Daisy Ridley lifting weights and generally working herself out and building herself up definitely occurred to me. I don’t think weight-centrism has gone away in Hollywood at all–but I definitely think there is a kind of telling gap in that sort of space.
ON SLAVE BIKINIS
Carrie Fisher spoke a lot about wearing the iconic metal bikini in the scene when Jabba the Hut makes her his slave in "Return of the Jedi." It was both a sign of her role as a sex symbol in the Star Wars universe, and an outfit she mocked repeatedly in later years. But in the newer Star Wars films, there's not a slave bikini in sight.
That’s one of the things that really stands out about the new generation of heroines in the Star Wars franchise–they’re not sexualized in the same way that Leia was. And there’s obviously a lot more to Leia than her sexuality, but that is one of the dominant images of her that’s kind of lasted over the years.
PRINCESS LEIA AS CARRIE FISHER
One thing became clear as Carrie Fisher evolved into a public figure: she was unabashedly funny, clever, fierce–and always assertive.
One of the things that I also found very interesting about The Princess Diarist is that she talks about how during the line readings, the actual dialogue of Star Wars is a little clunky and a little baroque, like a lot of fantasy dialogue. And I think it was Harrison Ford who said something like, "George, you can write this but you can’t say it."
And what she adds to the role is this incredible vivaciousness and personality and a little bit of sarcasm, a little bit of assertiveness. And so much of what we come to understand about Princess Leia as a character isn’t necessarily what’s written… it’s what Carrie Fisher brought to it.
ON FISHER'S RELATIONSHIP TO THE FRANCHISE
Carrie Fisher never actually retained the rights to her image, which made millions as part of the franchise. When she presented the AFI Life Achievement Award to George Lucas, she wasn't afraid to bring it up in the form of a very telling joke.
She was a 19-year-old when she got the part, so it wasn’t really something she thought about. But also there wasn’t really a precedent for something as big and as profitable as Star Wars, so there wasn’t really a road map for including the rights to something outside of the movies. And so of all those things – the Pez dispensers and the shampoo bottles– she didn’t really get to make any money off of that, which she was vocal about.
FISHER AS A CRITIC OF HER INDUSTRY
One of the incredible things about Carrie Fisher is that she was actually born in the spotlight. She has two famous parents. When she was two months old, her father left her mother for Elizabeth Taylor, who was the biggest movie star in the world. So she basically grew up in the public eye and I think she grew to be able to respond to that in a way that I think a lot of celebrity kids and child stars aren’t really able to.
So I don’t know if there’s any accounting of where it came from, because she’s such a singular person. But I think it really helped her in taking ownership of her image. Being able to not just be Princess Leila–she was someone who wrote novels and had one-woman shows and was obviously a huge force when she did the press tour for “The Force Awakens.”
ON BECOMING HER OWN PERSON
I think one thing Carrie Fisher did perfectly is take things that might otherwise be used against her...and really fold them into her own narrative. For example, she suffered a drug overdose in the mid-80’s and did a stint in rehab and then she wrote a novel about that called Postcards from the Edge and she wrote the screenplay that was directed by Mike Nichols. And she used that as kind of an entree into a second career as sort of a Hollywood script doctor.
And another thing that she was very vocal about was her mental illness–– and her use of electroshock therapy and her manic depression. And I think one of the things that people kind of forget about is, because he’s so adorable, is that he was actually her therapy dog. She wasn’t just taking him along because she thought it was funny, although it obviously was in certain interviews.
Interviews like this one:
Carrie Fisher's 'Advice from the Dark Side' — of the Guardian
Carrie Fisher was a woman of many titles– icon, actress, celebrity daughter, writer and memoirist– but she was also the author of the too-short-lived advice column in the Guardian, "Advice from the Dark Side."
Merope Mills, the Guardian's West Coast Editor, was tasked with casting the role of advice-giver before the column began in June of this year.
"I’d already had Carrie Fisher in mind because she’s had such an interesting life and so many different experiences," Mills said. "Marriage, parenthood, mental illness, addiction."
But what really caught Mill's eye was this tweet from Fisher:
Please stop debating about whetherOR not👁aged well.unfortunately it hurts all3 of my feelings.My BODY hasnt aged as well as I have.Blow us👌🏼
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) December 29, 2015
"It was just sort of masterful and it summed her up so well," Mills said. "I mean, it was honest! And after that, I made an approach and she very quickly said yes."
The name fell into place shortly soon after that. "It was clear to me that she loved sort of punning names, you know “Wishful Drinking” and all that– they were all her’s," Mills said.
THE INTRODUCTION
The first piece Fisher wrote in the Guardian was an introduction to the column. In it she writes, "Tell me your story, I'll tell you mine." That's how the column felt for a lot of readers, like Fisher was telling them "here's something that I went through and maybe it could be helpful," rather than offering prescriptive advice.
Yes, I think that was very much the way she lived, not just in the column but in life–she’d had these experiences of bipolar disorder and mental illness and she wasn’t shy about talking about them, either in her column or in her books. If you met her, one-to-one, she was an open book, brilliant to spend time with. And so rare that you find people of her level of celebrity willing to talk about the highs and the lows as much as she was.
THE FIRST COLUMN
In Fisher's very first column, a woman writes in to ask if she can trust her husband again after he sleeps with a prostitute, which is to say the least, a heavy topic to start with.
We get so many letters...and I didn’t just send her one–I sent her a whole handful. And I said, “this one I think is brilliant and I’d love to see how you answer it.” And you know, she didn’t disappoint.
It got a huge reaction, not least of all because she wrote this brilliant letter that said keep trying with him. She said that partly because I met her at a time in her life where she was trying to find someone. She wanted companionship and she was trying to say to the letter-writer, don’t give up on a relationship.
THE LAST COLUMN
In her last column, a young woman asks Fisher about her struggle with bipolar disorder, an illness that Fisher was very open about living with. She told the letter writer, "As your bipolar sister, I'll be watching."
The absolute vast majority of letters we got to her were about some form of mental illness. She really felt an incredible duty of care to people. At the end of the first letter, to the lady whose husband is sleeping with prostitutes, she says “I want to send you a present” and to this one she says “I’m your bipolar sister.” And having met her and having been around her, she really cared for people. She was a very warm person, and I think that shown through with that letter and all the others.
And you know, she made lots of jokes about getting awards for mental illness– it was the subject of lots of gags from her book. But in her house, right in sort of prideful place, there is an award she received from a charity for her services toward mental illness. And she said to me “I’m most proud of that.”
NYT film critic Manohla Dargis' most controversial review of the year
Manohla Dargis is a chief film critic for the New York Times, where you can read her Best Films of 2016 list. She talked to the Frame's John Horn about the review that generated the most backlash this year.
On her most controversial review of the year:
Hands down, it was the “Ghostbusters” review. It was ridiculous in a lot of ways. I try not to read anything about a movie before I review it because I just want to come at the movie as cold as possible, but it was really impossible to avoid “Ghostbusters” noise. I really did try to block out. I just wrote about it the best way that I could and I enjoyed the movie! It’s goofy and stupid, but I like goofy and stupid. But there was just so much negativity. I don’t like blocking people, but I had to block people on social media. Some of it was really just so incredibly offensive. It seemed to me that no matter what I was going to write, there were going to be people that were going to disagree. And that’s completely fine, but this was not a movie that we could actually ever talk about because everyone had already made up their minds.
On getting hate mail from readers:
I've always gotten a lot of hate mail. When I first started writing many years ago, I was told by various men that I worked with [that] women always get a lot more hate mail. So I'm really used to the hate mail... but people were telling me I was wrong and the movie actually hadn't even opened.
Why she thinks "Ghostbusters" upset so many fans:
There had been talk about making a "Ghostbusters" [that was] not all or partly female. But back when it was Alyssa Milano, it seems like the fanboys did not have a problem with that type of casting. It was really I think these specific women. I absolutely think that there was a difference between having some middle-aged women who were not supported also by a man in a mentoring position, because that had also been discussed early on when there was talk about resurrecting the franchise. I think it was these specific women that really upset people.