At the Star Wars 40th Anniversary Celebration in Orlando on Friday, Mark Hamill hosted a special panel in honor of the late Carrie Fisher, his Star Wars co-star and beloved friend.
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Hamill shared personal stories from his friendship with Fisher — some were funny, some were heartbreaking. Here are the highlights:
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1. “Well, here’s a panel I was hoping wouldn’t come for another 30 years.”
2. “I have to tell you, I’ve been trying to deal with this — you know, there are 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.”
3. “Let me tell you about the first time I ever met her…I was unprepared. I was bowled over by her humor and her wit, and how sardonic she was; how dark she was.”
4. “I’m still not thinking of her in past tense. Certain people have a vitality and an energy that’s so strong, it reverberates far beyond their lack of physical presence.”
5. “I have to tell you, Carrie would want us to be happy. She wouldn’t want us to become consumed by grief; she was all about having fun every day, which is why it was such a joy to be around her — well, most of the time.”
6. “When we found out in the storyline that we were brother and sister, 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. “
7. “She made Solo and Skywalker look like chumps. No one had probably ever challenged Han Solo.”
8. “She reveled in being not only pretty much the only girl in that galaxy far, far away at the time, but her exalted status. She was true Hollywood royalty.”
9. “The thing she had about her that no one else could match was she made you feel, when you were in her presence, like you were her best friend. She was so laser-focused on you, so engaging, that it was exhilarating to be around her.”
10. “The moments I remember are when I had her to myself, you see. As attracted as I was to her, I thought, I couldn’t handle her as a girlfriend. She’s too much.”
11. “Part of me did fall in love with her. I think every guy that she met — I’ve heard Dan Akroyd tell stories, I’ve heard Paul Simon tell stories — she had you under her spell.”
12. “Sometimes we wanted to go that direction; on the pretext of kissing techniques. ‘I’m a pretty good kisser, you know.’ ‘Oh, I think I’m the better kisser.’ Cut to us making out on the couch like a couple of horny teenagers. What really cooled it was the fact that as some point, we both started laughing.”
13. “Carrie looked at me and said, ‘I promise you, if you go first, I’ll heckle your funeral.’ That’s quintessential Carrie: It’s so irreverent, it’s so funny. She said, ‘Promise you’ll heckle mine!’ I said, ‘Oh, you got it, babe!’ That’s one promise I won’t keep.”
14. “That’s what I thought was so incredible about her: for all the bravado, it was almost a defense mechanism. She wore this toughness like armor, but deep down, [she had] that vulnerability of a little girl. It’s enormously appealing; and she’s so smart.”
15. “Carrie will always be with us, probably stronger than ever before, because you never miss something like you do when you don’t have it anymore.”
16. “We had a long stretch where I didn’t see her for many years; perfectly friendly, we just weren’t hanging out anymore. So the great gift of coming back to these movies was the fact that I could reestablish my relationship with her, and sort of make amends.”
17. “When I go to sleep at night, there’s never a day so far when I don’t think of her. And when I think of her — and I hope you can appreciate this mental image — she’s leaning down from the celestial stratosphere, with those big brown eyes, that sly smile on her face, as she lovingly extends me the middle finger. That was Carrie.”
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