What Did Carrie Fisher Think About Her Latest “Star Wars” Cameo?

Lucasfilm – 2016(LOS ANGELES) (SPOILER ALERT) Carrie Fisher took on the mantle of Princess-turned-General Leia in 2015 when she was featured in The Force Awakens, the latest movie in the Star Wars canon franchise.

And late last year, Fisher came back to the galaxy far, far away in a different way.

In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm’s first standalone movie set in the era of A New Hope, the tech and visual teams working on the film were able to recreate not only villain Grand Moff Tarkin, since Peter Cushing has long since passed away, but a youthful Princess Leia for a crucial scene.

The young Leia cameo makes sense, because Rogue One leads into the first Star Wars and focuses on how the rebels got the plans for the Death Star. If you recall, Leia puts the plans in R2-D2 to try and get them to Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.

ABC News’ Nightline was given a backstage pass into how this was made created by the employees of Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects company George Lucas founded in 1975.

John Knoll, chief creative officer and senior visual effects guru for Lucasfilm, said Leia was part of the original story for Rogue One and Tarkin came later. For those who have seen the movie, it’s clear Tarkin and a 19-year-old Leia were brought back using advances in digital technology.

“It’s a lot a pressure, yeah. I mean, it’s digital humans, it’s the hardest thing in computer graphics,” Knoll told Nightline. “Well, we look at human faces all day, every day. So people are very attuned to, you know, seeing anything that — that looks off.”

So what did the late Carrie Fisher think of the transformation? 

“She was involved in the process and, you know, she saw the final result and she loved it,” Knoll said. “She got to see the scene. [Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm] showed it to her. So, I got a call afterwards from Kathy saying, ‘Well, Carrie loved it.'”

Incidentally, the filmmakers behind the ongoing Star Wars series might have to consider using similar technology to wrap up Leia’s storyline: although her work was reportedly wrapped on Episode VIII, she was rumored to have a larger role in the upcoming Episode IX

Star Wars was released by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.