Star Wars 9: Mark Hamill weighs in on whether Princess Leia should be recast

'She’s irreplaceable, as far as I’m concerned'

Soon after completing filming on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Carrie Fisher sadly passed away, leaving an enormous hole in the galaxy far, far away.

As has been widely publicised, Fisher’s iconic Princess/General Leia was intended to have a major role in Episode IX, similar to how Han Solo had the majority of Force Awakens screen-time and Luke Skywalker was the primary original trio character in Last Jedi.

Mark Hamill – who plays Luke – has since commented on whether LucasFilm and Disney should recast the character for the upcoming movie.

Speaking to Collider, the actor acknowledged how Leia was supposed to be key to Episode IX – “especially since the dynamic of having Kylo Ren as her son” – adding: ”I think it would be tough recasting, only because she’s so indelibly linked with that character.

“They’ve already ruled out the idea of computer generating her performance like they did with Peter Cushing.

“So, gee, that’s really got to be… not an insurmountable problem… but I know the script had been developed enough so that when we lost her they had to go back to square one. But she’s irreplaceable, as far as I’m concerned.”

Hamill has been promoting the DVD release of Last Jedi in recent weeks, revealing his preferred order for watching the many, many Star Wars movies.