**Slight ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Spoilers…if you even need to be warned by now**
Coming into “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” most fans were well aware of the unenviable task that director JJ Abrams had in front of him with using pre-existing footage of Carrie Fisher in place of the real actress, given her untimely death. And while the footage isn’t seamless, Fisher’s last appearance as Leia Organa is pretty great and touching. But what fans weren’t expecting is that there would be a couple of instances where we see a brand-new Leia, albeit just a younger version of the character appearing in a flashback and as a Force Ghost.
READ MORE: “So Much Stuff” Was Cut: Dominic Monaghan Hopes For A ‘Rise Of Skywalker’ Directors Cut
Recently, Yahoo spoke to ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Patrick Tubach about how those shots were accomplished, and believe it or not, the story is actually more touching and emotional than you might be expecting.
When tasked with providing a flashback scene where a young Luke is helping train a younger Leia in the ways of the Jedi, Mark Hamill was able to reprise his role as the Jedi Master (with the help of some de-aging, of course). But for Leia, the crew went with a stand-in — Fisher’s real-life daughter Billie Lourd.
“Billie was playing her mother,” Tubach said. “It was a poignant thing, and something that nobody took lightly — that she was willing to stand in for her mom.”
He added, “It was an emotional thing for everybody to see her in that position. It felt great for us, too. If you’re going to have someone play [Fisher’s] part, it’s great that it’s [Billie] because there are a lot of similarities between them that we were able to draw from. The real challenge was just making the Leia footage we had to work with fit in that scene.”
Lourd already has a small role in the new sequel trilogy, but no one knew that she actually was a stand-in for her mother in the scenes that required some digital trickery. Plus, using Lourd actually provides a bit of a loophole where the filmmaker had previously said they would never digitally recreate Leia in the film. You see, they just used her daughter with a digital face.
As for the final appearance of Leia, in a Force Ghost sequence alongside her brother Luke, fans were touched by the ending but felt that someone was missing — Leia’s redeemed son, Ben Solo. However, according to Tubach, that was never an option and it was always going to be just Leia and Luke, as it served a very distinct purpose for Rey at the end.
“My interpretation of it anyway is that when you see Luke and Leia there, it’s about the Skywalker [legacy],” he said.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is in theaters now.