Princess Leia

• 1. Drafting The Princess

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  George Lucas wrote and refined the Star Wars screenplay over several years, changing Princess Leia's identity multiple times before settling on her final form. In one early draft from 1973, she was the spoiled teenage daughter of King Kayos and Queen Breha of Aquilae. A later version made her Luke Skywalker's cousin and the daughter of Owen Lars and his wife Beru. Subsequent story synopses established her as Leia Antilles, the child of Bail Antilles from the peaceful world of Organa Major. By the fourth draft in 1976, she appeared as Leia Organa of Alderaan, which is how she appears in the finished film released that same year.

  Lucas intended for Luke to have a twin sister who would be the focus of another film during the development of The Empire Strikes Back. Following production of that film, Lucas decided not to make his planned sequel trilogy due to burnout. He needed to explain the identity of the other potential Jedi mentioned by Yoda, so he decided that Leia would be revealed as Luke's twin. In an early draft of Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan told Luke a slightly different story about his twin sister than what appears in the finished film. He explained that Luke's sister and their mother were sent to a distant star system for protection. Their mother died soon after, and Luke's sister was adopted by the governor of Alderaan and his wife, who were friends of Obi-Wan.

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• 2. Carrie Fisher Casting

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  Carrie Fisher was nineteen years old when she was cast as Princess Leia in 1976. She won the role over Karen Allen, Glenn Close, Farrah Fawcett, Anjelica Huston, Amy Irving, Jessica Lange, Terri Nunn, Linda Purl, Meryl Streep, and Cindy Williams. Jodie Foster was offered the role but turned it down because she was under contract with Disney. After meeting Fisher, Mark Hamill said that she defied his expectations despite being five years younger than him. He viewed her as older and wiser than himself in many ways.

  Fisher reflected on playing Leia in 2014, stating that the character is worried, angry, and snarky for much of the original trilogy. She noted that those attributes are not fun things to play. Fisher stated that she would have rather played the wry and sardonic Han Solo than Leia. She claimed that killing Jabba the Hutt was the most satisfying moment of her acting career. Fisher received Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress for Star Wars and Return of the Jedi. She also received Saturn Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, the latter being a posthumous nomination after her death on the 27th of December 2016.

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• 3. Rebel Leader And Mother

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  Leia commands the Rebel base on Hoth when Imperial forces arrive and assault the facility in 1980. She leads an evacuation while fleeing with Han, Chewbacca, and C-3PO in the Millennium Falcon. While hiding in an asteroid field, Leia and Han share a kiss before Lando Calrissian betrays them to the Empire. Leia confesses her love for Han as he is frozen in carbonite and handed over to the bounty hunter Boba Fett. She senses Luke is in trouble and orders Chewbacca to turn the ship around to rescue him.

  In 1983, Leia infiltrates Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine disguised as the Ubese bounty hunter Boushh. She frees Han from the carbonite but they are both recaptured by Jabba, who chains Leia and outfits her in a metal bikini. After Luke arrives and kills Jabba's rancor, the crime lord sentences Luke, Han, and Chewbacca to be fed to a Sarlacc. The group overpowers their captors, and Leia strangles Jabba to death with her chain. Later, she travels to the forest moon of Endor to disable a shield protecting the second Death Star. There, Luke reveals that he is her twin brother and that Vader is their father.

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• 4. Jedi Master And Chief

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  Leia establishes New Alderaan, a sanctuary for the destroyed planet's surviving inhabitants, one day after the events of Return of the Jedi in Timothy Zahn's novel The Truce at Bakura published in 1993. In this timeline, she becomes the chief of state of the New Republic and raises three children with Han: Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin Solo. During the New Jedi Order series running from 1999 to 2003, Leia resigns as Chief of State when the alien Yuuzhan Vong invade the galaxy.

  In The Joiner King published in 2005, Leia asks Saba Sebatyne to train her as a Jedi Knight. She is promoted to Jedi Knight during The Swarm War later that same year. In the Legacy of the Force series spanning 2006 to 2008, Leia and Han become caught up in conflict while their son Jacen turns to the dark side. At Tenel Ka's request, Leia and Han adopt Allana, disguised with the name Amelia to protect her from future vengeance against Caedus or the Hapes Consortium. This narrative arc continues through the Fate of the Jedi series from 2009 to 2012.

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• 5. Cinnamon Bun Hairstyle

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  Leia's unique hairdo arranged in two large buns on each side of her head came to be known as the cinnamon bun hairstyle in 1977. When asked about its origins in a 2002 interview, George Lucas said he was aiming for a kind of Southwestern Pancho Villa woman revolutionary look from turn-of-the-century Mexico. An exhibit at the Denver Art Museum credited Clara de la Rocha as an inspiration for the hairdo. The museum stated that Leia's hair arrangement was also influenced by a hairstyle worn by indigenous Hopi women of North America.

  A February 1978 cover story for the British teen magazine Jackie included step-by-step instructions on how to replicate Leia's hair buns. Her hairstyle has been referenced or parodied in The Muppet Show in 1980, the film Spaceballs in 1987, and the short film Hardware Wars in 1978. In the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Billie Lourd portrays Lieutenant Connix who wears a hairstyle similar to Leia's. Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd played this character in all three sequel trilogy films starting with The Force Awakens in 2015.

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• 6. Feminist Icon And Bikini

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  David Bushman, the television curator at the Paley Center for Media, called Leia defiant, assertive, and strong when she debuted in 1977. Alyssa Rosenberg wrote in The Washington Post in 2015 that Leia is a great heroine whose power comes from her political conviction and acumen. Diana Dominguez cited Leia as a welcome change from previous portrayals of women in film and television in a 2007 article. Mark Hamill described Leia as an effortlessly feminist character who does not need to be rescued by a man.

  At the beginning of Return of the Jedi, Leia is depicted as a slave of Jabba the Hutt wearing a brass bikini costume created by Aggie Guerard Rodgers and Nilo Rodis-Jamero. The design was inspired by the work of fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. An original rubber version of the costume sold for $96,000 at auction in 2015, and another version sold for $175,000 in 2024. Fisher quipped that the bikini was what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell. She stated that killing Jabba with the chain proves she retained dignity even in that demeaning costume.

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• 7. Resistance And Final Sacrifice

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  Leia returns in The Force Awakens released in 2015, which takes place thirty years after the events of Return of the Jedi. She is the leader of the Resistance, an organization she formed to fight the First Order. After a battle on the planet Takodana, she reunites with Han and discusses their son Ben Solo, who left Jedi training and fell to the dark side becoming Kylo Ren. When Han encounters Ren on Starkiller Base, he asks him to abandon the First Order but Ren refuses and kills his father.

  In The Rise of Skywalker released in 2019, Leia uses all her remaining strength to reach out to Ren through the Force while Rey impales him. Leia dies during the climactic battle on Exegol as Ben Solo utilizes the remainder of his life force to revive a comatose Rey. A transformed Ben Solo vanishes into the Force at the same time as his mother. Rey travels to the Lars homestead on Tatooine and buries the lightsabers that had belonged to Leia and Luke. As the Force spirits of her two mentors look on, Rey tells a passerby that her name is Rey Skywalker.

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