Carrie Fisher forced to lose weight for return appearance in Star Wars

Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher has commented on the pressure to lose weight for the new movie, adding that Hollywood’s obsession with women’s appearance is “insane”.

The actress, 59, will be seen again in her famous role as rebel leader Princess Leia in Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens later this month, some 38 years after she first appeared as the character.

Talking to the January edition of Good Housekeeping magazine, she spoke about having to lose 16kg for the movie.

She said: “They don’t want to hire all of me — only about three-quarters! Nothing changes, it’s an appearance-driven thing. 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 actress, who made her debut in 1975’s Shampoo, said she shed the weight by exercising more and eating less.

“There is no other way to do it,” she said. “I have a harder time eating properly than I do exercising.

“It’s easier for me to add an activity than to deny myself something.

“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.”

Commenting on Hollywood’s “obsession with appearance”, she said: “We treat beauty like an accomplishment and that is insane. Everyone in LA says: ‘Oh you look good,’ and you listen for them to say you’ve lost weight. It’s never: ‘How are you?’ or ‘You seem happy!’ ”

As the daughter of famous parents — her mother was actress Debbie Reynolds and her father singer Eddie Fisher — she said growing up she would look at her mother and think: “Wow, she is gorgeous and I don’t look like her, therefore I’m not pretty.”

She added: “And my father doesn’t visit — I mustn’t be pretty because he likes pretty women.

“You think, I’ll go into show business because then I’ll get enough love and they will put make-up on me properly and then my life will work.”

Fisher was married to musician Paul Simon and while she hasn’t “in theory” ruled out getting married again, she says it’s “hard for women in showbusiness”.

“I don’t want to make someone Mr Fisher,” she said. “The most important things in my life now are my mother, my daughter, my friends, and my dog, Gary.

“He travels everywhere with me. I love that saying: ‘Make me become the person my animal thinks I am.’ If I am who Gary thinks I am, I’m fantastic.”

Read the full interview in the January 2016 issue of Good Housekeeping, on sale today.