Carrie Fisher, the actress who portrayed Leia Skywalker in the Star Wars films, had quite a few talking scenes in Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker even though she passed away in 2016.

So how were these scenes filmed? I assume it was a combination of methods: doubles, CGI, old footage, etc. But are there any specifics on how they were able to still have her in the film posthumously? I'm specifically curious if any of the footage was actually her or if it was all special effects.


According to interviews with JJ Abrams, the Leia scenes are mostly compiled from footage that was cut during the filming of The Last Jedi. Scenes and dialogue were rewritten around this footage, and a sprinkling of CGI was used to integrate the new footage into the new movie.


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    I loved her and Mark’s de-aged digitization in the brief training scene.......awesome Dec 22 '19 at 3:38
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    @MissouriSpartan It surprisingly looked good! It was a really beautiful thing to have! Dec 22 '19 at 4:54
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    But is this the end of using her footage posthumously? This is now two films with posthumous footage of her. Feels like an unwelcome precedent. Companies could in future simply film enough generic or green-screened footage of individual actors to be able to bring them back for decades, and that's before any CGI (and there's also the commercial precedent that recycled or CGI footage could in some cases be cheaper than new actors; do actors need to form a shell-corporation for protecting their image rights?)
    – smci
    Jan 5 '20 at 16:18
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    @smci agreed, if they're gonna do that, I want Jimmy Stewart as a Jedi... Jan 20 '20 at 10:39


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