Yahoo Lifestyle Meryl Streep will not replace late Carrie Fisher in Star Wars
Meryl Streep is an actress who can seemingly resurrect any cultural icon, from Margaret Thatcher to Julia Child.
But the Hollywood icon has shut down the hopes of Star Wars fans, who were calling for her to step into the role of Princess Leia after losing Carrie Fisher in December 2016 to a heart attack.
A rep for the actress called the rumours she will replace Carrie 'untrue' in a statement released to Entertainment Tonight.
It's sad news for the 8,900 supporters who had signed an online petition calling for the 21-time Oscar nominee to take over in Star Wars: Episode IX.
The petition’s author, who goes by the handle Chill M, argues that the role of Leia is too important to be dropped in the final instalment of the new Skywalker trilogy, even though Carrie — who created the role in 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope — died before shooting began.
“As the fans of Star Wars and Carrie Fisher, we really want Leia to shine in Episode IX and we certainly do not want her to be written out of the film abruptly without a reasonable plot,” wrote the petition’s author.
“Therefore, recasting Leia is a more ideal option for us and we believe that Meryl Streep is an ideal candidate to play Leia,” they added.
The author’s argument is based both on 53-year-old Meryl's many accolades as an actress and her friendship with Carrie, plus the fact that she played a character based on Fisher in Postcards from the Edge, Mike Nichols’s adaptation of Fisher’s semiautobiographical novel.
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy had already stated outright that Leia will not appear in Episode IX.
Though the princess-turned-general was originally going to be a “really significant” part of the story, Carrie's death necessitated script changes.
“We pretty much started over,” she told Entertainment Weekly in April last year.
Fans have yet to respond to the news that Meryl will not be able to fill the role, but we're sure they might still hold out a New Hope.
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