Q 6

PLAYBOY: We still remember your scenes from Shampoo. Princess Leia is a nun compared with that character. Which one do you have an easier time relating to?

Carrie Fisher: Shampoo--because it's a contemporary role. Princess Leia is very cartoonlike. In Shampoo, you could improvise. You can't improvise in space. Usually, in stressful situations, one would go, "Oh, my God; oh, shit!" You can't say, "Oh, my God!" in space. You can't have any time references. It's more difficult to move within that dialogue and have it sound natural. I've always found my character very stilted compared with the other ones, but it's a fairy tale. It's more difficult to play that, because you have to bring yourself to it. Leia has dry, almost parched humor. That stuff is difficult. I always felt as if I were a girl who was being led into this $10,000,000 boy's toy. Shampoo was easy. It had nothing to do with my character's promiscuity. It had to do with her reality. At the time I did Shampoo, I was a virgin. I knew nothing. They would kid me. Warren Beatty, Hal Ashby and Robert Towne would all fall apart laughing, and I would, too. My line to Warren was "Want to fuck?" and I was supposed to be hostile and mean and power-crazy. I would say that line and fall apart, because Warren had told the others that I didn't know what I was talking about and that was very funny to them. I knew about everything, which was probably why I didn't want to do anything. I was the last in my class. I was 17, almost 18.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Were you grounded when your mother saw your scenes in Shampoo?

Carrie Fisher: No. She helped me with my dialogue and asked if I could, maybe, say screw instead of fuck. She wanted a five- as opposed to a four-letter word. I don't think my grandparents saw it. My grandmother has a pacemaker, so they don't see that kind of film. My father was fond of it. My mother liked it. She's not really Tammy, just as I'm not really Princess Leia. She's a regular human being. I've actually heard her say that word.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: There is a rumor that you've made more money from the Star Wars films than your parents made during their entire careers.

Carrie Fisher: I think Andy Warhol started that rumor. People like it. It sounds good. I'd like it if I weren't me. I could call and get an accountant and figure it out. My mother made 53 films and did night-club work. They didn't get paid as much as we do now; but, no, it's not true. I've been working for only eight years.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: What are the net effects of being raised by show-business parents?

Carrie Fisher: Look at me; I'm a wreck. The worst. Don't ever do it. If you had grown up with my parents, it would have been real weird for you. I didn't grow up with both of them, but growing up with even one of them was not--I mean, I was on the movie-star map. When I was three hours old, I was photographed by Modern Screen. I don't like being photographed. My father is now publicly saying that he took a lot of drugs. I don't remember that. I spent my summers in Vegas. That was camp to me--sitting by the pool and hearing that weird music and having people paged.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: Was there anything in your father's book that embarrassed you?

Carrie Fisher: I read some of it. He can't embarrass me. I don't own him. That's how he wanted to work out his life: to write about it and gain that perspective. I read it to see whether or not he talked badly about my mother. They're not on good terms.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Growing up with prominent breasts, were you made to feel any particular way about them?

Carrie Fisher: Breasts? Mine? I don't even think about myself like that. In Shampoo, it's true. For Star Wars, they had me tape down my beasts, because there are no breasts in space. Camera tape, gaffer tape. At the end of every day, I was going to draw a lottery and one of the crew could rip off the tape. I never did it, though.

Actually, my mother is more famous for her breasts than I could ever be for mine. Groucho Marx, in front of Nate 'n Al's, once told me she had a great chest. He was going to visit her in the hospital to see if they were real. He also said that on the Cavett show. So I have some. I have two.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: We have heard that you are financially set for life. What unexpected things has that allowed you to do?

Carrie Fisher: I have this house and I have an apartment in New York. And I can always pick up the check for dinner. I'm pretty comfortable financially, but you never are for very long. If you make a lot of money, taxes come screaming to your door and take most of it away. I've done well for somebody who's 26. Unfortunately, I was brought up real privileged. That allows you material comfort, which I always had. It allowed me not to be financially dependent on my mother at 18 and to live real comfortably and travel and do things. I don't do ridiculous things with money. My business manager has socked mine away so hard, I'm loath to buy a chair. One of my mother's biggest threats was always that she'd take away my Saks card. Now I don't even have one. Money is a nice thing to have. Everything you see here I own.