Star Wars: Maisie Richardson-Sellers Talks Working With Carrie Fisher on The Force Awakens

The Star Wars “sequel trilogy” gave fans quite a lot to celebrate, including the long-awaited return of characters like Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo. Leia’s return in the movies ended up being pretty bittersweet, after Carrie Fisher tragically passed away in 2016. In the years since, many have celebrated and shared what it was like to work alongside Fisher on the Star Wars movies. Maisie Richardson-Sellers, who portrayed Resistance military officer Korr Sella in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, is the latest cast member to share her experience in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter. While Richardson-Sellers only appears in the finished film for a brief moment, she acted opposite Fisher in several deleted scenes, and says that the actress made her first on-camera experience “amazing”.

“My first-ever on-camera experience was a scene with Carrie Fisher,” Richardson-Sellers explained. “I had no idea what I was doing. I had never been on a set before. I had only done theater up until that point. It was an overwhelming but amazing baptism by fire. It turned what could have been a painful experience into a really positive one, a learning experience.”

“She was the most gentle, sweet, down to earth,” Richardson-Sellers said of Fisher. “I walked on set and she just beamed at me and she said, ‘We’ve got this.’ I was like, ‘This is my first time.’ And she was just so kind and generous and just ended up making it into such a pleasurable experience, what could have been a really intimidating experience. And then afterwards, I went to her trailer to say thank you and she was like, ‘Come in.’ I sat with her, and we had a chat. And she was just so open and just so willing to share. I was there for two days. She didn’t have to be like that with technically a day player.”

That behind-the-scenes dynamic shares an endearing parallel with how Korr Sella and Leia interacted in the Star Wars universe, something that is further explored in the Bloodline tie-in novel. The novel, which is set before the events of The Force Awakens, dives further into Korr’s time as part of Leia’s envoy for the New Republic senate. When it comes to her scene in The Force Awakens (which was included in the film’s official novelization), it was ultimately cut for a specific reason.

“We originally had a character that we got to know who was on the Republic planet when it was destroyed,” director J.J. Abrams previously told Rolling Stone. “But it felt a bit beside the point, and in the re-editing, we ended up losing this whole chunk of Leia scenes that we had prior.”

What do you think of Maisie Richardson-Sellers’ comments about Carrie Fisher? Do you wish we could have seen more of Korr Sella in the Star Wars universe? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!