Leia Organa in Star Wars: Who She Is and Who Plays Her

Leia Organa is the princess who carries the Empire's stolen Death Star plans in Star Wars (1977), also known as A New Hope, and later becomes General Leia Organa of the Resistance, played by Carrie Fisher. Fisher is the credited actor in six films. Leia also appears in Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith (2005) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), where TMDB does not credit a performer for her.

Her credited name changes with her role. Star Wars (1977), directed by George Lucas, credits Fisher as Princess Leia Organa. The Empire Strikes Back (1980), directed by Irvin Kershner, Return of the Jedi (1983), directed by Richard Marquand, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), directed by J.J. Abrams, credit her as Princess Leia. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), directed by Rian Johnson, credits Leia Organa, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), also directed by J.J. Abrams, credits General Leia Organa. If you searched for Princess Leia, you have the right page, because she is the same character as the General Leia of the sequel films.

The billing order tells its own story. Fisher is billed third in the first three films, fifth in The Force Awakens, second in The Last Jedi and first in The Rise of Skywalker, so the character moves from the supporting cast to the top of the poster over the run.

The opening of her first film sets the pattern. Darth Vader captures her, but before that she hides the plans inside the droid R2-D2 with a plea for help, and the droids carry her message to Tatooine, where the farm boy Luke Skywalker finds it. That puts her at the start of the saga's chain of events rather than at its end. For the full run of films, see Star Wars movies and Star Wars movies in order.

Leia Organa's arc takes her from a princess smuggling the Death Star plans to a Rebel hero and finally a Resistance general.

Spoilers for every film follow.

She is born in Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith (2005), when Padmé Amidala gives birth to twins, Luke and Leia, and dies. Anakin Skywalker has by then become Darth Vader and is sealed into his black armored suit, so the twins are hidden apart. Luke goes to Owen Lars on Tatooine under Obi-Wan Kenobi's watch, and Leia goes to Bail Organa on Alderaan.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), directed by Gareth Edwards, ends where the 1977 film begins. Leia receives the stolen plans from a small ship that escapes Vader's attack on the Rebel flagship, and she says they carry hope. The two films sit side by side in the chronological order.

In Star Wars (1977) Vader captures her, and the Death Star destroys Alderaan, her home world. Luke, Han Solo and Chewbacca rescue her from a cell while Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam, and the film closes with Leia honoring Luke and Han with medals.

In The Empire Strikes Back Imperial walkers overrun the Rebel base on Hoth, and Leia flees in the Millennium Falcon with Han, Chewbacca and C-3PO. They reach Cloud City, run by Lando Calrissian, where Vader freezes Han in carbonite. Lando, ashamed of his betrayal, helps Leia and Chewbacca escape, and Leia and the Falcon later rescue Luke after his duel with Vader.

In Return of the Jedi she ends up as Jabba the Hutt's prisoner and kills Jabba herself. She and Han then lead the strike team on the forest moon of Endor, where the Ewoks help them bring down the shield, and the Rebels destroy the second Death Star.

In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, set thirty years after the Empire fell, her son is Kylo Ren, and he kills Han Solo, so Leia mourns Han alongside Rey. In Star Wars: The Last Jedi Poe Dameron disobeys her orders for a costly attack, and a later strike kills most of the Resistance leadership. Leia survives, Vice Admiral Holdo takes command, and by the end Leia tells Rey that the Resistance can rise again.

In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker she is credited as General Leia Organa and billed first. Rey defeats Palpatine using the lightsabers of Luke and Leia.

Leia Organa is the twin sister of Luke Skywalker, the daughter of Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) and Padmé Amidala, the adoptive daughter of Bail Organa, and Han Solo's partner and the mother of Kylo Ren (Ben Solo).

Spoilers follow.

Leia and Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, are twins, and their relationship begins in the 1977 film as a rescue, when Luke and his companions free her from a cell on the Death Star. The twin connection comes from Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, where Padmé gives birth to both children. Luke grows up on Tatooine and Leia on Alderaan, which is why they meet as strangers.

She is Organa because Bail Organa took her to Alderaan and raised her as his daughter. Jimmy Smits is credited as Senator Bail Organa in Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith, and as Bail Organa in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Her birth parents are Padmé Amidala, played by Natalie Portman, and Anakin Skywalker, who becomes Darth Vader and is played by Hayden Christensen in Revenge of the Sith. The films we cover show the twins hidden in different places, and they show Vader telling Luke, not Leia, that he is his father in The Empire Strikes Back. They do not explain what Vader knew about Leia, so we do not offer a reason.

Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, is her closest partner across the original trilogy. She and Han lead the Endor strike team, and their son, played by Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, kills Han in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Chewbacca escapes Cloud City with her, and Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, helps them do it.

Her message in the first film is meant for Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness. In the sequels her main relationship is with Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, whom she meets after Han's death and tells that the Resistance can rise again.

Leia Organa's last film appearance is Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), where she is credited as General Leia Organa, and the films we cover do not show her death.

Spoilers follow.

She survives the attack that kills most of the Resistance leadership in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and she is billed first in The Rise of Skywalker. In that film Rey defeats Palpatine by turning his Force lightning back on him with the lightsabers of Luke and Leia, and she later buries the lightsabers on Tatooine.

No film we cover gives Leia's age at the end of her story. The films fix only the span, from her birth at the end of Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith to her last credited role, so we do not state a number.

No film we cover shows Leia training as a Jedi; she is a political and military leader. The only Jedi link is that Rey uses the lightsabers of Luke and Leia in The Rise of Skywalker.

Leia Organa's best moment is hiding the Death Star plans in R2-D2 at the start of Star Wars (1977), because it makes her the cause of the whole plot. Everything Luke does afterward follows from a message she recorded before the story begins, and in my opinion no later scene sets up a lead character as efficiently.

Leia Organa's Cloud City escape in The Empire Strikes Back is her second best sequence. Han has just been frozen in carbonite, and Leia works with Chewbacca and Lando, who is ashamed of his betrayal, to get out, then circles back in the Millennium Falcon to pick up Luke. The film ends on an unresolved note, so the rescue is easy to overlook.

Leia Organa kills Jabba in Return of the Jedi, which is the cleanest answer the original trilogy gives to the earlier rescue scenes, since this time she frees herself and Han.

The plans that Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor die to steal in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story reach Leia, who says they carry hope, and she then hides the plans in R2-D2 when Star Wars (1977) opens. That handoff is the link between the two films.

Leia Organa's survival in Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the sequel trilogy's clearest statement of what she stands for: she lives through the strike that kills most of the Resistance leadership and tells Rey the movement can rise again. If you are new to the saga, watch Rogue One straight before the 1977 film to see the handoff to her at its best.