Even though there is much happiness and joy coming from Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, there is no denying there has been a tinge of sadness hanging over this year’s proceedings, because of the recent death of our beloved Princess Leia Organa, the legendary Carrie Fisher. When the event kicked off with the big Star Wars 40th Anniversary panel, reuniting creator George Lucas along with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew, Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels, one couldn’t help but think to themselves “Carrie Fisher should be up on that stage too, cracking jokes and busting everyone’s chops.”
When Lucas, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, and Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd all spoke so lovingly about her, everyone in attendance and watching online got choked up. And when John Williams made a surprise appearance and played “Princess Leia’s Theme” from the original film in tribute to Carrie? Well….for most of us, that’s when the tears began to flow. The next day, to remind us all of the incredible person that Carrie Fisher was both on and off screen, Mark Hamill hosted a special panel paying tribute to the woman he referred to as his “space sis.” You can watch highlights from the panel in the video down below:[brightcove video_id=”5399807137001″ brightcove_account_id=”3653334524001″ brightcove_player_id=”rJs2ZD8x”]
Hamill began the panel by saying, “Well, here’s a panel I was hoping wouldn’t come for another 30 years. Someone once wrote when someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure. And here today, we’re here to celebrate the treasure that was Carrie Frances Fisher.” Hamill continued to open up to the crowd about his grief over the loss of his dear friend, saying “I have been trying to deal with this. There’s the five stages of grief, and just when I think I’ve gotten to acceptance, I bounce back to anger, because I’m mad. She should be here. She made every celebration so much fun. She deserved to be here.”
Hamill added “We were more like brother and sister than we realized, because we loved each other, but we fought and we criticized and we were judgmental, and we’d get fed up with one another.” Hamill said that when he first met Carrie Fisher when they went into production on the original film, he felt very much “under her spell,” and he would become jealous when she spread her attention to others. “I didn’t want to share her with Harrison [Ford], I didn’t want to share her with anybody. At the same time, as attracted as I was to her, I thought, ‘I couldn’t handle her as a girlfriend. She’s too much. She’s what you’d call a high maintenance relationship.’ ”
Although they never dated, Hamill admitted on the panel “A part of me did fall in love with her.” The one time they did make out, Hamill said, happened after the two got themselves into a contest over who was the better kisser of the two. “Cut to us making out on the couch like a couple of horny teenagers,” although he admitted they both started laughing which abruptly ended that attempt at romance between the two. “I thought we dodged a bullet there, because we had the fun without the responsibility.”
Since her passing, Hamill admitted that a night has not gone by that he hasn’t thought about her, but concluded by joking to the crowd “She’s looking down from the celestial stratosphere with those big brown eyes, that sly smile on her face, as she lovingly extends me the middle finger. And that’s how I want you to think of her: that was Carrie.”
If you’ve got a little more time, the full panel is also online. Did Mark Hamill’s words about his good friend Carrie Fisher make the tears well up in your eyes for you like it did for us? Let us know down below in the comments.
Images: Lucasfilm
