Actress

I feel like I'm always talking about myself, and I love not talking about myself.

Carrie Fisher will always be an icon as Leia, but also as Carrie. She will live on forever.

I'm one of those people where, if I get a piece of advice from someone I look up to and respect, I'll really listen to it.

It never felt like we were making a 'Star Wars' movie. It didn't feel like it was serious. It just felt like we were allowed to be creative and kind of goof off.

My parents are not of this world. I've had to work multiple jobs, been in a position where I cannot pay off student loans.

I want to work with amazing filmmakers and tell important stories, and if I have to audition to do that, I will.

There are so few times in life where you are passionate about anything. And I think that if you can find that, you should just hold on to it and protect it at all costs and just follow it, because it's so rare.

If I am just, like, on a run by myself, I've never been stopped. Even if I'm at Target buying my own action figure, people would not believe that it's me. I actually was like, 'This is me!'

Even if someone doesn't like it, or just likes it for me, storytelling has been the one true love story of my entire life.

You get the initial script, and then things sort of change here and there, but the whole thing is this sort of mushy collaboration, which I love.

In terms of the timeline, 'The Force Awakens' came out in December of 2015. I got the role in November of 2015. I was auditioning and waiting to hear back when their marketing machine was everywhere. It's like you're going for something that's so high stakes, and you try to remind yourself, 'Okay, stop thinking about it,' and it's everywhere.

You search for images and stories and movies and music from people that look like you and sound like you and speak like you because you want to feel like, 'Oh, if they can do it, so can I.' There's a little bit of that need for validation, especially when you're younger and trying to look to someone to look up to.

I still just sort of live my life the way that I was before. I don't know when I will feel that it's different.

My parents didn't get to have a dream. Their dream was to live in a country where their kids would have choice.

I was not on social media for a really long time because I was afraid of being seen.

When you're really young, you tend to fall in love with characters. If you start seeing the same type of character everywhere and realize that they don't look like you, or they don't speak like you, you start wanting to change who you are. That's something that I did when I was a young kid.

You know who I was most nervous to meet, probably? Andy Serkis. I am such a huge fan.

I worked in an office. I was like an assistant. So, I would just answer phone calls, coordinate events. It was a great day job. I worked with amazing people, but obviously, whenever you are doing something that's not your dream, you kind of feel like, 'Oh, I'm on this grind.'

I think anytime you go into anything that's different and new, there's a bit of fear.

I actually read 'The Last Jedi' before 'The Force Awakens' came out. It totally helped me, though! The idea of this franchise that I already knew was such a big cultural thing, I was sort of given this freedom to be honest with that character and not have this pressure of making her something else that we had already seen in this universe.