Northland fans mourn Princess Leia actress Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the Star Wars films. SUPPLIED 30th Sept 2010 NZH 13Oct10 - RDP 21Oct10 - WTA 21Oct10 - NAD 21Oct10 - NAD 03Feb11 - NZH 08Mar13 - Carrie Fisher WGC 0

Like Star Wars fans around the globe Onerahi's Nic Connop grew up with Carrie Fisher.

And like the millions of others, Mr Connop is mourning the death of Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the iconic Star Wars movies.

Fisher, aged 60, died yesterday morning (NZ time) in Los Angeles after suffering what was described as a massive heart attack on a flight from London on Friday.
She had been in London filming episodes of the Amazon-Channel 4 comedy Catastrophe.

She burst on to the scene in 1977 alongside Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill in the first three Star Wars movies.

Mr Connop said he was shocked and saddened when he woke yesterday to hear of Fisher's death as Star Wars fans around the globe and across the universe would be.

"It's such a big shock. When I heard she had had a massive heart attack I thought 'no, no, no'. Then we heard she was improving and thought she's going to pull through," he said.

"But then the news that she had died came through."

Mr Connop said Fisher was an icon of the screen and her character Princess Leia was a terrific role model for people everywhere.

He thought it was wonderful that Fisher reprised the role of Princess Leia in last year's Star Wars movie Episode VII - The Force Awakens, which is really a sequel to the third movie released in the original franchise, Episode VI - The Empire Strikes Back. A young Princess Leia also featured at the end of the latest Star Wars movie Rogue One - which is a prequel to the original movie - when she was handed the schematic for the Death Star.

Mr Connop said it was a nice way to make the links between the various movies, but with Princess Leia also going to feature in future Star Wars movies he wondered how the role could be reprised.

"She's supposed to feature in episode eight, but that's going to be difficult to do. I'm pretty devastated to be honest [at her death]. She was somebody to look up to and we grew up with her. [Leia] was such a strong character."

Mr Connop expects to gather with friends and fellow Star Wars fans to watch the original trilogy that features Fisher heavily.