Though she certainly reached iconic status for her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars, Carrie Fisher’s screenplays show the surprising and successful career she had behind the scenes as a Hollywood writer. Fisher was cast as Princess Leia when she was still a teenager and went on to play the role over the course of the original trilogy before subsequently returning in Star Wars: The Force Awakens to kick off the new trilogy. When Fisher died in 2016, she left behind a wonderful legacy that included an amazing writing career.
Fisher wrote her autobiographical book Wishful Drinking which garnered great acclaim, but she also was key in bringing several big movies to the screen with her contributions to the scripts. Entertainment Weekly described her as “one of the most sought-after doctors in town,” being brought in to work on completed screenplays to improve it before the cameras started to roll. While it was a lesser-known aspect of her career, it is impressive to see all of the great and well-known movies Fisher has had a role in making.
Star Wars was the big break for Fisher as an actor but it also started her writing career in Hollywood movies. George Lucas is the first person to admit that dialogue isn’t one of his strong suits as a writer. Luckily, the actor he cast in the role of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars movie was a strong writer in her own right whose greatest strength was dialogue.
Fisher told the Phoenix New Times that she and Harrison Ford rewrote a lot of their own Star Wars dialogue to sound more organic and naturalistic. She told Lucas, “You can type this s*** but you can’t say it.” It is not hard to see Fisher and Ford’s influence as the banter between Leia and Han Solo feels more alive and authentic than some of the stilted “space jargon” that populates the rest of the movie.
Steven Spielberg reinvented the Peter Pan legend with his underappreciated gem Hook. Robin Williams stars as an adult Peter who is a family man in the regular world having forgotten all about his days in Neverland. However, he is forced to remember and become the high-flying hero once more when Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) kidnaps his children.
Although the screenplay is credited to Jim V. Hart, Malia Scotch Marmo, and oddly enough, Michael Myers actor Nick Castle, they weren’t the only three writers who worked on the movie. Per /Film, Fisher said:
The movie changed the typical approach to the story by allowing Tinkerbell to talk. Given that the part was played in the movie by Julia Roberts, it makes sense that they wanted to develop the role a little more with such a superstar in the cast.
Shortly after her Oscar win for her scene-stealing role in Ghost, Whoopi Goldberg got a starring role in what would be one of his biggest movies. Sister Act found Goldberg playing a lounge singer who witnesses a mob hit and is forced to hide out by pretending to be a nun in a convent. The screenplay is credited to Paul Rudnick and, according to Entertainment Weekly, Fisher rewrote some of the script.
Not only did Fisher develop the film’s characters and iron out some of the kinks in the script, but she also mediated Goldberg’s tempestuous relationship with Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg. Fisher told Goldberg, “You’re having a p***ing contest with a guy who actually has a d***.” The hilarious line is something that would be found in one of Fisher’s scripts and shows the kind of Hollywood knowledge she had working in the industry for so long and in different positions.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Last Action Hero bombed critically and commercially when it was released, but has since found new appreciation as a deconstruction of the action movie genre that was ahead of its time. The movie followed a young boy who is magically sucked into the latest entry in his favorite action movie franchise where he partners up with Schwarzenegger’s over-the-top action movie hero.
Per TheWrap, Fisher worked on the screenplay for Last Action Hero but she was far from the only writer involved. The original script was written by Adam Leff and Zak Penn who ended up receiving a “story by” credit while action movie legend Shane Black gets credit for co-writing the script with David Arnott. Fisher was subsequently brought in to add her special touch while fellow script doctors Larry Ferguson and William Goldman also contributed.
While some fans might be aware of Fisher’s script doctor work on comedies and rom-coms, she has shown a lot of range in her script work, including action thrillers like The River Wild. The movie stars Meryl Streep as a woman who goes on a rafting vacation with her husband and son only to be taken hostage by two criminals, played by Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly.
When The A.V. Club asked Fisher which script work made her the proudest, she said:
It is interesting to look at the movie from that perspective as it is a rare action movie with a female lead who is a grounded mother and wife yet still proves to be the hero of the story. While screenwriter Denis O’Neill deserves a lot of credit for a tight and thrilling script, it is not hard to imagine Fisher played a big role in bringing some of that strength to the story.
The Wedding Singer was the first collaboration between Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, quickly proving that they made for a terrific rom-com duo. The comedy is set in the 1980s with Sandler playing a wedding singer who is left at the alter, ruining his outlook on weddings in general. However, he is helped along by a sweet but newly engaged waitress, played by Barrymore.
The script is credited to Tim Herilhy who previously wrote Sandler’s classic comedies Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. In the same A.V. Club interview, Fisher added that she was fond of the dialogue she wrote for The Wedding Singer and was brought in to flesh out the Barrymore character. While the movie was another hit for Sandler, it also worked as a big comeback for Barrymore with Fisher’s work on the script likely helping to make her more than just a love interest.
More than a decade after the original trilogy ended, George Lucas returned to the galaxy far, far away with the Star Wars prequels which kicked off with The Phantom Menace. The movies explored the origins of Anakin Skywalker becoming the villainous Darth Vader and the rise of the Empire. The movies also included classic characters like Obi-Wan and Yoda, with an infant Leia only included at the end of the trilogy. However, Fisher was still heavily involved.
According to TheWrap, Lucas also brought her on to punch up the first two prequels. With their disjointed pacing and mechanical dialogue, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones were the ones that needed the most work. While Fisher didn’t manage to erase every cringeworthy line – “The negotiations were short” and “I don’t like sand” both made it to the final draft – her work was valued.
The Scream franchise has always had a self-awareness in its subversion of the slasher genre. However, Scream 3 began to move into more comedic and almost parody territory with the new adventure which finds Sidney Prescott battling the Ghostface killer as he targets the production of a “Stab” movie. Along with the strange appearance from Jay and Silent Bob, Fisher cameos in Scream 3 as film archivist Bianca Burnette who is noted to look a lot like Carrie Fisher.
According to /Film, Fisher worked on the script for the movie and even came up with the idea of her cameo herself. Despite the fact that it feels strange within the Scream world, it is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie. Fisher also pokes fun at herself with Bianca claiming she was up for Princess Leia too but Fisher got the role because she slept with George Lucas.