Carrie Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd shows her children entering the Star Wars universe

“I liked being Princess Leia. Or Princess Leia’s being me. Over time I thought that we’d melded into one. I don’t think you could think of Leia without my lurking in that thought somewhere,” Carrie Fisher wrote in her 2016 memoir The Princess Diarist. The legendary actress and writer made her mark on cinema history in the original Star Wars series as Princess Leia, of course, and her daughter, actress Billie Lourd, has also made the film series a part of her family’s life.

On May 4th, which over the last few years has become meme-ified as Star Wars Day–you know, “May the 4th be with you”--Lourd celebrated in her own way by sharing a photo of her children watching Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. In a photo she posted on Instagram, her children sit close to the television, viewing the film intently as Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia appears onscreen. Carrie Fisher passed away in 2016 before she was able to meet her grandchildren, so the moment is particularly special. Condolences arrived from the likes of Nancy Sinatra, Rosanna Arquette, Rachel Zegler, and Kate and Laura Mulleavy, as Entertainment Weeklyshared, not to mention over 1800 other comments and likes from nearly 144K people.

Lourd has written about her mother’s passing on Instagram over the last several years, including the way that both grief and gratitude can exist at once. “I watch the magic that is my son and daughter and I know she is a piece of that magic,” she wrote in 2024. “And I feel all the things. The grief. The joy. The longing. The magic. The emptiness. The fullness. And it all coexists in a profound way.” A photo like the one she shared of her two children watching Star Wars: Return of the Jedi helps us understand all of these feelings at the same time.

Lourd herself has also been part of the newer Star Wars films, playing Resistance Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker. In the films made before Fisher’s passing, she played opposite her mother, who reprised her Leia Organa role in the films, ascending to General Organa and later Master Organa. In the films made after Fisher passed, Lourd and her family gave the franchise permission to use previous footage of Fisher that had been filmed.

File:Carrie Fisher Debbie Reynolds, and Billie Lourd.at the Paley Center in 2011. it.m.wikipedia.org

Lourd has continued to salute Fisher’s legacy as both mother and actress, not to mention that of her grandmother, the legendary actress Debbie Reynolds, and understands her role as a guardian of the Leia legacy. “I grew up with three parents: a mom, a dad and Princess Leia,” Lourd wrote in Time Magazine in 2019. “Initially, Princess Leia was kind of like my stepmom. Now she’s my guardian angel. And I’m her keeper.” Lourd writes in the piece of at first not wanting anything to do with Leia, but after seeing how much she meant to people, making more space for the character in her heart.

“I realized then that Leia is more than just a character. She’s a feeling. She is strength. She is grace. She is wit. She is femininity at its finest. She knows what she wants, and she gets it. She doesn’t need anyone to defend her, because she defends herself,” Lourd wrote. “And no one could have played her like my mother. Princess Leia is Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher is Princess Leia. The two go hand in hand.”