Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds will get a victory lap of sorts with Bright Lights, the HBO Documentary about their relationship directed by Fisher Stevens and Alexis Bloom. It's now a fitting parting gift to the Hollywood icons (read E! News' review of the movie), one that Fisher and Reynolds both saw, Stevens told E! News.
"Carrie really loved the film," he told us in a recent interview.
But Fisher wasn't always in love with the documentary. "At first we had to kind of—she was a little shocked at the intimacy of it," Stevens said. But with the help of some of the Stars Wars legend's friends who saw the finished documentary, Fisher came around, Stevens said.
"There were little things that really bugged her, but in the end she fell in love with the film and thought it was a love letter to her and her mother, and that's the good news, that she loved it," Stevens said.
Bright Lights takes viewers behind the scenes of the relationship between the mother-daughter duo, warts and all. Viewers see Reynolds ready for her final performance and accept the SAG Life Achievement award in 2015 while in ailing health. Stevens said nothing was really off limits, except Star Wars. Fisher was concerned about her contract with Disney and didn't really want a fan convention filmed, but finally relented (and ended up enjoying how it was portrayed). However, cameras did follow Fisher to London where she began training and rehearsing for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
"She does this workout to trim down for Princes Leia and she finishes the workout and lights a cigarette and drinks a Coca-Cola, and the trainer's like, ‘Carrie, no!' and grabs the Coke and pours it out," Stevens remembered. "The next thing you see her assistant putting Coca-Colas in the refrigerator. That was Carrie, a real original."
Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds premieres on HBO on Saturday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m.