Aug. 1 (UPI) — Billie Lourd says she feels “a lot of pressure” to maintain late mom Carrie Fisher‘s legacy.
The 25-year-old actress discussed in the September issue of Town & Country the challenges of honoring Fisher and late grandmother Debbie Reynolds while forging her own path.
“I’ve always kind of lived in their shadows, and now is the first time in my life when I get to own my life and stand on my own. I love being my mother’s daughter, and it’s something I always will be, but now I get to be just Billie,” Lourd told the magazine.
“It is [scary],” she confessed. “It’s a lot of pressure, because she had such an incredible legacy, and now I have to uphold that and make it evolve in my own way.”
Reynolds, who starred in such films as “Singin’ in the Rain,” died of a stroke Dec. 28, one day after Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” movies, died following a heart attack. Lourd said remembering her mom’s sense of humor helped her cope with the losses.
“Oh, [humor is] so important,” the star said. “If life’s not funny, then it’s just true — and that would be unacceptable.”
“Even when she died, that was what got me through that whole thing,” she shared. “When Debbie died the next day, I could just picture her saying, ‘Well, she’s upstaging me once again, of course — she had to.'”
Lourd paid tribute to Fisher at a “Star Wars” celebration in April, saying her mom taught her “by her own example.” She will appear with the late actress in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” and will also star in “American Horror Story: Cult.”
