The original Star Wars trilogy relied heavily on the aspect of family. Fathers and sons reunited, and siblings becoming a little too familiar with each other. When the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams, came aboard to launch the new trilogy, he reached out to a more or less unknown actress to audition for the lead role of Rey. The actress just happened to be Billie Lourd, the daughter of Star Wars royalty Carrie Fisher. Lourd appeared on The Ellen Show (via Screen Rant) Monday and revealed she actually auditioned for the lead role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens:
“J.J. Abrams called me to come in for Star Wars because he couldn’t find someone for the lead. He ended up finding Daisy Ridley, who’s an incredible actress — so talented! But I went in and he ended up giving me this tiny role with a couple lines.”
She may have done well in the role, although now it is hard to think about her as Rey because Daisy Ridley has been engrained in our minds as the new trilogy’s heroine (think about how Tom Selleck was all but set to play Indiana Jones). With Lourd not having much or any acting experience, it seems like the audition was a nod to Fisher, as Star Wars: The Force Awakens is listed on Lourd’s IMDB as her first movie role. This news makes me wonder what Abrams initially had in mind for the film, perhaps the direction he was heading at the time had Rey set to be eventually revealed as the daughter of Princess Leia and Han Solo.
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Last year had to have been an incredibly difficult for Lourd, losing her mother, Carrie Fisher, and just a day later losing her grandmother, Debbie Reynolds.
Would you like to have seen Billie Lourd take on the role of Rey? Let us know in the comments down below!
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Source: Screen Rant
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