1.3.17 ‘I would like to be who my mom has been – not afraid to be a little weird’

I never did get to speak with the late Carrie Fisher or Debbie Reynolds (more’s the pity) but I hear they were cracking gals. The pair died within a day of one another last week, which sent a lot of us into a tailspin, once again shaking our fists at the craptacular way 2016 presented.

But in September 2016 I did get to speak with Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd (who uses her agent father Bryan’s last name, and stars in “Scream Queens”). Lourd, 24, was just awesome in a way you don’t expect when speaking with young actors. She was immediately open and friendly and I was just charmed out of my socks.

Since we ended up speaking for nearly 20 minutes and the article I wrote was so short, many things didn’t make it into the piece. So I’m sharing some of it with you now, because it takes on a fresh resonance now that we’ve all lost Fisher and Reynolds — though we can’t know what Lourd is going through these days.

You grew up in a Hollywood home; was it pretty much determined from birth that you’d become an actress? Or did you have to fight to be allowed to go into the business?
Absolute opposite. It was not even an option for me. I’d ask to take acting class, they’d say, “Take anything but acting.” Definitely not destined from birth. Even my grandmother [Reynolds] was like, “This is not the life you want, dear,” but I saw the other side of it, how it made them happy. Basically even though they said I shouldn’t do it, I saw that they enjoyed their lifestyles and no matter how much they said, “Don’t do it” I saw how happy it made them so I had to go for it. The stipulation was I had to get a degree in something other than acting before you start acting.

As the daughter of someone who is quite famous in the industry, how important was it to make your own mark?
It was my main thing. Despite of how much mom would like us to be in movies together, it helps to have Lourd as a last name. People come up to me and say, “I had no idea your mom was Princess Leia” and that’s awesome for me, that they got to know me as me, not as the daughter of someone famous.

What do you hope you bring to acting that affects others?

I feel like a lot of people in this industry create this personality in the media of this fake person: “I love my job la la la.” But I would like to be who my mom has been – not afraid to be a little weird. I hope I can eventually get into more stories, I’m really into gay rights, I hope to get into that thing – like what Chloe Moretz is doing with Hillary Clinton. It takes balls, you see the amount of hate she gets, she doesn’t care. I want to be that kind of person, not be afraid to share my beliefs and fight for what I believe in.

What’s the one role you’d kill to get?
I’m a singer, so I would love to play – nothing’s in the works but I would love to play an old 1960s singer who has a drug problem. That’s the dream.

xo,

R

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2 Comments

  1. J.H. Moncrieff on 1/03/17 at 2:52 pm

    Great post! Shamefully, I’d never heard of Billie until she lost her mom and grandmother, but she sounds like an interesting, bright person.

    I hope she gets her wish.



    • Randee on 1/03/17 at 7:00 pm

      She was pretty new to me as well before I was asked to chat with her. I was pleasantly surprised.