Obi-Wan Kenobi Writer Comments on Young Leia’s Sass in the Star Wars Series

Warning: this story contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The sass is strong with young Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair). A decade after the Skywalker twins are separated at birth in Revenge of the Sith, “Part I” of Obi-Wan Kenobi introduces the 10-year-old Leia as the adopted daughter of Alderaan Senator Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) and Queen Breha (Simone Kessell). When the Inquisitor Reva (Moses Ingram) orders the princess’ kidnapping to draw out Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) — a survivor of the Great Jedi Purge hunted by Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) — the old Jedi Master is a young Leia’s only hope.

After her father pleads for Obi-Wan’s help, convincing him to temporarily abandon watch over Luke Skywalker (Grant Feely) on Tatooine, the mission to return Leia home leads to Alderaan places. Obi-Wan and Leia escape the seedy planet Daiyu only to end up on the Empire-occupied Mapuzo, where little Leia’s strong will reminds him of an old friend — her late birth mother, Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman). 

“[Leia’s sass] is fun to write, but a little goes a long way. So you try not to gild the lily with that,” Obi-Wan head writer and executive producer Joby Harold told The Hollywood Reporter. “You try to make sure that it comes across as her being spirited and not just a grown-up writing for a kid. So it’s always a challenge, but we tried to thread that needle as gracefully as we could.”

Part of that balance is depicting a 10-year-old Leia who believably grows into the spitfire princess portrayed by Carrie Fisher in A New Hope, set another nine years after Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

“She’s pretty sassy, and Carrie Fisher’s incarnation of the character does a very good job of showing that she’s no one to be trifled with. So giving that to a child actor — but at the same time allowing her to be a kid still — is the dance,” Harold said. “But the fun of those scenes with Ewan is to try to make it a two-hander in a really interesting way so that you get a little bit of Paper Moon and Midnight Run. I love those movies so much, so those tiny little moments within this bigger thing is part of the fun of it.”

Harold added Leia’s abduction “was always the most interesting way of getting Obi-Wan out of hiding” on Tatooine, prompting a rescue mission taking the hermit Jedi across the galaxy — and right towards a confrontation with Vader on Mapuzo, their first since Obi-Wan and Anakin’s lightsaber duel on Mustafar a decade earlier.

“If you think about it, there’s nothing else that could bring him out. He’s not going to leave Luke for anybody except Leia. Why else would he abandon that post?” Harold said. “The notion of him looking over Luke and not looking over Leia was always a question for everybody once you realize the importance of those two characters side by side. So we had that be a question we confronted head on. Bail says to Obi-Wan in the cave, ‘Why him and not her?’”

He continued, “So she’s the only thing that I believe he would leave Luke for. There’s nothing else he would be called to do where he wouldn’t stay by Luke’s side.” 

Starring Ewan McGregor, Moses Ingram, Rupert Friend, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Indira Varma, Sung Kang, Grant Feely as young Luke Skywalker, Vivien Lyra Blair as young Leia Organa, and Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, new episodes of Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi are streaming Wednesdays on Disney+.