Billie Lourd is the daughter of actress Carrie Fisher and agent Bryan Lourd. Somewhere in all that, she made the connection needed to get cast in J.J. Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Rumors flew that Lourd would be seen on screen as Princess Leia’s daughter.
But in a recent interview with Interview Magazine, Lourd put that rumor to rest.
“I’m not Princess Leia’s daughter,” she said. Which pretty much buttons that up.
Her parents had steered her away from acting, like some parents in the business do. Mom Carrie Fisher was already second-generation acting. She and her Lourd tried to push their daughter elsewhere. But Lourd was sneaky.
“It’s been a secret dream of mine,” Lourd says of acting. “My whole life, they said, ‘Do not act. You need to get a college degree.’ I went to performing arts camp, secretly taking classes—I got the lead in the musical, and my dad was like, ‘Wait, I thought you were going here for music and knitting.’ ”
Billie Lourd did graduate from NYU last year with a degree in religion and psychology, which may come in handy if she does any more Star Wars films. Getting cast in that right out of the gate is pretty sweet, no matter who you mom is.
“This is the first job I’ve ever had—right into the fire,” Lourd says of the experience making the film.
But for now, she is in Scream Queens on Fox, which is a dark comedy.
“It’s scary, but there’s a lot of comedic breaks,” says Lourd of her character. “She’s brought up my sass level for sure.”
“This is what I’ve always wanted,” Lourd says. “I’m living the dream right now.”
Billie Lourd, @carrieffisher's daughter, set to make her #StarWars debut http://t.co/1qiHS34GRX pic.twitter.com/3gcOPrhvlc
— Yahoo Canada (@YahooCanada) June 9, 2015