Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Evans has called the spin-off film a “love letter to Carrie Fisher” in a new interview.

Fisher, who played the iconic role of Princess Leia – later known as General Organa – passed away on December 27 2016 after suffering a severe cardiac arrest on a flight from London to LA four days earlier.

Discussing the movie, which was released 11 days before the actor’s death, Evans told The Telegraph: “I just feel the whole thing was, to be honest, one big love letter to Carrie. What we’re doing with the entire movie is all building to that one moment [of the Death Star plans being handed to Princess Leia] where we hand the baton to her, to go off and make that film that inspired us all as kids. So it couldn’t have ended better from that point of view.

“It’s just sad – I was always thinking that I would get to meet her and talk to her at some point about it, and I never really met her properly,” he added. “I walked past her once on the set of Episode VII. I was meeting some of the crew, and she walked past me, and I had a little fanboy freakout.”

He continued to say that Fisher had been shown some of the footage of her in Rogue One by producer Kathleen Kennedy, but didn’t realise it had been done in CGI. “When it came to our film, it went so late with that shot, trying to get it right, that Kathy took it down personally, on a laptop, and showed her,” Evans explained.

“And initially Carrie apparently didn’t realize it was CGI, and wondered if it was footage which we had taken from somewhere else. Which was really reassuring for us. I thought, one day, either at the premiere, or one of these conventions, I’d get a chance to talk to her. And it’s really sad that it’s not going to get to happen.”

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