Carrie Fisher Weight Loss: Actress Reveals Pressure To Lose Weight For ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons

Carrie Fisher dished to Good Housekeeping that she was asked to lose 35 pounds so she could once again play Princess Leia in the latest “Star Wars” movie “The Force Awakens.”

“They don’t want to hire all of me – only about three-quarters! Nothing changes, it’s an appearance-driven thing,” she told the magazine. “I’m in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say get younger, because that’s how easy it is.”

The 59-year-old actress did give in by dieting and exercise, but she confessed – “when I do lose the weight, I don’t like that it makes me feel good about myself. It’s not who I am. My problem is they talk to me like an actress but I hear them like a writer.”

Fisher first played Princess Leia in the 1977 movie at 19-years-old. She weighted 105 pounds at that time, according to Kansas City Star. The role made her into a sex symbol. “That’s so odd because I don’t think that way. I don’t look at myself even remotely that way. So that would have been hilarious, if I had the chops for hilarious at the time,” she told New York Daily News.

Before Fisher’s revelation came out, the movie’s director, J.J. Abrams, talked about wanting moms and daughters to also watch “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and some are wondering what his opinion is about Fisher’s statements.

“Star Wars was always a boys’ thing, and a movie that dads could take their sons to,” Abrams told “Good Morning America” when he was on the show Monday.  “And although that is still very much the case, I was really hoping this could be a movie that mothers could take their daughters to as well.”

Abrams has not yet made any comment on Fisher’s revelation.