Carrie Fisher is winning the Force Awakens press tour. Carrie Fisher does not care about going off topic. Carrie Fisher is not here for your silly questions. Carrie Fisher will bring her dog, Gary Fisher, to your interview. Watch her interview on Good Morning America yesterday below. It’s a David Foster Wallace treatise on the media, all the potential of the trailer for (but not the film version of) Morning Glory, and, heck, Best in Show, condensed into one perfect clip.
But Carrie Fisher did not simply wake up one morning and decide that she was going to be wacky on Good Morning America. No, Carrie Fisher always speaks from her heart and what she speaks is the most honest truth in the Galaxy.
This all began on March 5, 2013, when Carrie Fisher announced to the world, or rather Palm Beach Illustrated, that she was doing the new Star Wars movie and would play an older Leia. Two days later, Carrie Fisher’s rep clarified that she was joking. But Carrie Fisher does not joke. Carrie Fisher tells the truth. Soon, news slipped through George Lucas himself that Fisher — along with Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill — were in the final stages of negotiation for the film. Carrie Fisher cares as much about your embargoes as Padmé Amidala cares about the Trade Federation’s.
In October, Carrie Fisher did an interview with her maybe film daughter Daisy Ridley. There was little Force Awakens news enclosed. Instead, Carrie Fisher spent most of the interview offering very mom-like advice to Daisy Ridley. For instance:
FISHER: So what actors do you like now? Besides me, of course.
RIDLEY: Of course you. Carey Mulligan and Felicity Jones are two of my favorites. I’m not so much younger than them. I like that. It’s kind of aspirational.
FISHER: And males? Any crushes?
RIDLEY: Not really! I’ve never been one for crushing on famous people.
And talking shit about life in the industry:
FISHER: Oh, you’re going to have people have fantasies about you! That will make you uncomfortable, I’m guessing.
RIDLEY: Yeah, a bit.
FISHER: Have you been asked that?
RIDLEY: No, they always talk about how you’re a sex symbol, and how do I feel about that. [Fisher sighs] I’m not a sex symbol! [laughs]
FISHER: Listen! I am not a sex symbol, so that’s an opinion of someone. I don’t share that.
In fact, Carrie Fisher has spent a lot of her time grappling with the ambiguous legacy of Princess Leia, geek sex symbol and nearly lone female character in the Star Wars universe. She spoke out recently about being pressured to lose weight for the role of “General Leia,†and has recently had to address people’s complaints of the sales of toys depicting Leia in her slave outfit:
How about telling [the man who complained about the doll to tell] his daughter that the character is wearing that outfit not because she’s chosen to wear it. She’s been forced to wear it. She’s a prisoner of a giant testicle who has a lot of saliva going on and she does not want to wear that thing and it’s ultimately that chain, which you’re now indicating is some sort of accessory to S&M, that is used to kill the giant saliva testicle. … That’s asinine.
And finally, there’s Carrie’s dog, Gary, the star of her Twitter photo. Carrie took Gary to see The Force Awakens. Gary knows more about the Star Wars universe than you do. Gary Fisher is a regular feature on Carrie’s Twitter (which, by the way, is also full of retweets of random Princess Leia memes). Long live the Carrie Fisher press tour.