It’s undeniable that Carrie Fisher was a rare talent — and she’d have to be, to charm the notoriously picky George Lucas with her Star Wars audition. In a recently resurfaced video, originally posted on YouTube in 2006, Fisher sits down to read a scene opposite Harrison Ford (whom Lucas initially didn’t want to cast, but he was so good in the screen tests that Ford became his Han Solo).

Fisher dives right into it, speaking lines of sci-fi gobbledygook that other actors would burst out laughing at if they didn’t have the context. In the scene she reads for the audition, Fisher explains the Rebellion’s plans to take down the Death Star, an exchange that happens about halfway through the original Star Wars. She’s dressed normally with a short haircut, no cinnabons to be seen. She manages to be both strong and persuasive and acts just like Leia does in the movies, so it seems like Lucas didn’t need to give her too much character direction when production finally started.

It’s another example of just what a great talent Fisher was and how vibrant and engaging she managed to make even the driest-sounding material. We know that her parts of the newest episode had wrapped by the time she passed, but there’s no telling yet how the last installment in the series will cope without her. A Star Wars universe without Leia doesn’t feel quite the same.

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