Kelly Marie Tran on the challenge of filming Rise of Skywalker’s Leia scenes

SPOILERS for STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. First appearing in STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) was a mechanic with the Resistance who befriended Finn (John Boyega) and worked with him to help the remaining members of the Resistance escape from the First Order. Tran reprised the role for STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, and recently spoke with THR about the production of the movie as well as the challenges of filming scenes with Carrie Fisher's General Leia, who, as we know, is no longer with us.

Thanks to footage left over from previous movies, Carrie Fisher was able to play General Leia one last time for STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, but it didn't make things easy for actors sharing scenes with the late actress, and Kelly Marie Tran said that much more time was given to those scenes than others.

Yeah, the one thing that was difficult was that you were acting with footage that was pre-recorded. So, instead of having an actor there and reacting off the actor, you would sometimes look — in between takes — at how the actor delivered a line and then try to imagine and react to that. So, it definitely took more time and was a very different experience for me. We probably did a lot more takes for scenes with her than without her.

"It’s one thing to sit there, look at that footage and try to react to it, but a lot of the big group scenes felt like they were puzzle pieces if that makes sense," Tran explained. "We were trying to use specific moments that they already had, so it definitely took more time. I think there were more reshoots on those scenes, specifically, to just try and make sure all of the performances matched up since she wasn’t physically there." Tran also touched upon Leia's big moment in the film, where she reaches out through the Force to contact her son (Adam Driver). "I think it was really emotional for everyone," Tran said. "There’s definitely a sort of reverence that comes with knowing you’re in a scene like that. I don’t know how else to convey the feeling that I had on set that day, which is a feeling of wanting to make sure we did justice to that moment and to Leia." According to THE RISE OF SKYWALKER co-writer Chris Terrio, it's due to the difficulty of those Leia scenes that Rose Tico wasn't in the film more.

One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie [Fisher]’s footage in the way we wanted to. We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn’t leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together. As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film. The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly — so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia.

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER is now playing in theaters, so be sure to check out a review from our own Matt Rooney and let us know what you thought of the film as well!