Carrie Fisher

Fisher was born into Hollywood royalty, the daughter of entertainers Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, and had already appeared on Broadway and in a notable supporting film role as a teenager before her audition for Star Wars at just nineteen years old.

Nineteen years old and already the sharpest person on the Death Star, Fisher's Leia was royalty who grabbed the blaster and led her own rescue rather than waiting for one. She was already a published, sharp-witted writer by the time she took on the role, and later became an in-demand, uncredited Hollywood script doctor working on numerous major productions.

She returned to the role decades later in the sequel trilogy, and continued writing bestselling, candidly autobiographical books about addiction, mental health and Hollywood life until her death in 2016, work that gave her a literary reputation entirely separate from her most famous role.