Carrie Fisher entered Hollywood at the young age of 17 with a role in the 1975 comedy-romance drama ‘Shampoo.’ But her life truly changed overnight when she cracked the part of Princess Leia in George Lucas’s iconic ‘Star Wars‘ franchise two years later.
The portrayal of Leia Organa defined Fisher’s career and earned her many accolades and millions of fans around the globe. But even her most famous role brought moments that left the actress embarrassed. In fact, there is one scene in the franchise’s first installment that she absolutely despised and spent her lifetime wishing she could go back in time and change it.
An Unintended Flaw Behind Leia’s Galactic Accent
Despite growing up in California as the daughter of singing legend Debbie Reynolds and crooner Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher picked up an unexpected trait during her time spent at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
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For 18 months, she trained alongside many aspiring British actors before dropping out to take up the iconic role of Leia Organa in ‘Star Wars.’ Unfortunately, the training left its mark on her, as she unintentionally adopted her peers’ accents.
It popped up when Carrie shot a scene in ‘Star Wars: A New Hope,’ in which her character, Leia, boards the Death Star and berates antagonist Grand Moff Tarkin, played by Peter Cushing. “Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I thought I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board,” Leia says.
While audiences loved Leia’s sassy nature in the scene, the fact that she delivered such a bold line with a surprising British accent was baffling, at least for Fisher. Being a princess of Alderaan, Princess Leia does not speak with such an accent in the film.
In 2014, Fisher admitted in an interview that she sometimes slipped into the accent during the shooting process, joking, “I was 17 when I went to drama school, so I dropped out at 19 to play Princess Leia, partly with a British accent. It was sort of a viral accent—it came and went.”
“I looked a little pretentious, faking the accent,” she added. Recalling the moment decades later when she had become a household name, Fisher couldn’t help but cringe at the scene. She even confided in her co-star, Mark Hamill, about the same.
Mark Hamill On Carrie Fisher’s Lifelong Regret
In 2017, one year before Fisher passed away, Mark Hamill revealed that the actress regretted her English accent in the scene. “I wish I could go back and do that scene again. I really overdid the English accent,” he recalled her saying.
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Despite her confession, Hamill said he was unaware of the problem. He told her he had no idea what she was talking about. While he said the scene looked “perfect,” Fisher still reportedly tried to explain that she did it unconsciously. “Well, I was working around all of these English actors,” she said.
The revelation did not tarnish Hamill’s view of Fisher and made him admire her even more. “She got self-conscious about it. That’s what I loved about her,” Hamill said. Despite her inner conflicts, Fisher was loved by her legions of fans for her honesty about the films and her personal life.
In fact, some Star Wars fans do not believe this scene is a weakness at all. Instead, some believe Carrie Fisher’s spunky accent became part of her character’s legendary sarcasm and helped mock Tarkin’s own elite British diction.
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