Mark Hamill has paid tribute to his co-star, ‘space-twin’ and dear friend, Carrie Fisher, in an emotional guest column in The Hollywood Reporter.
Carrie Fisher died December 27 aged 60 after complications following an apparent heart attack.
Hamill penned a beautiful tribute, published in The Hollywood Reporter, talking about his first impressions of the star:
“She was 19 years old at the time. I was a worldly 24. So I was thinking, “Oh my God, it’ll be like working with a high school kid.” But I was just bowled over. I mean she was just so instantly ingratiating and funny and outspoken. She had a way of just being so brutally candid. I’d just met her but it was like talking to a person you’d known for 10 years. She was telling me stuff about her stepfather, about her mom, about Eddie Fisher — it was just harrowing in its detail. I kept thinking, “Should I know this?” I mean, I wouldn’t have shared that with somebody that I had trusted for years and years and years. But she was the opposite. She just sucked you into her world.”
Hamill also wrote “making her laugh was always a badge of honour”, a nod to Fisher’s noted quick wit.
“The lengths I would go to hear her laugh — there were no limits. I loved her and loved making her laugh.”
He also said they formed a unique kinship as neither were famous before Star Wars took off so they really were in it together:
“We had no idea the impact Star Wars would have on the world,” he wrote. “I remember we were out on tour right before the movie opened. By the time we got to Chicago, there was a crowd at the airport. I said, ‘Hey look, you guys, there must be somebody famous on the plane.” I was looking around to see who it might be. And then in the crowd I saw a kid dressed in a Han Solo vest. Then I saw girl dressed like Princess Leia. I said, ‘Oh my God, look, Carrie, there’s somebody dressed just like you. She’s got the buns on her head!'”
A special tribute for a special lady.
Our thoughts go out to Mark Hamill and to all of Carrie Fisher’s family and friends.
