Billie Lourd honors mom Carrie Fisher at Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony
"Mama, you've made it," Lourd said of the "Star Wars" actress.
"Star Wars" legend Carrie Fisher was posthumously honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 4, which has come to be known as Star Wars Day.
The late actress' daughter Billie Lourd attended the event to accept the honor on behalf of her mother, who died at the age of 60 on Dec. 27, 2016.
"My mom used to say you weren't actually famous until you became a PEZ dispenser. Well, people eat candy out of her neck every day," Lourd said in her speech. "I say, you aren't actually famous until you get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame."
"My mom is a double whammy -- a PEZ dispenser and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame now," she continued. "Mama, you've made it."
Lourd said Fisher tried to show her "Star Wars" when she was a little girl, but it wasn't until she was a little older, in middle school -- when she said the boys started telling her "they fantasize about my mom" -- that she decided to give it a serious watch.
"I wanted to hate it so I could tell her how lame she was. Like any kid, I didn't want my mom to be hot or cool -- she was my mom," the "Scream Queens" star said. "But that day, staring at the screen, I realized no one is or will ever be as hot or as cool as Princess Leia."
Lourd recalled later attending Comic-Con with her mom and quickly realizing "how widespread and deep people's love" for her was.
"It was surreal. People of all ages from all over the world were dressed up like my mom, the lady who sang me to sleep at night and helped me when I was scared," she recalled. "Watching the amount of joy it brought to people when she hugged them or threw glitter at them -- sorry about that -- was incredible to witness."
She added, "It was the side of my mom I had never seen before, and it was magical."
Lourd praised her mom's iconic "Star Wars" character Leia Organa, a princess-turned-general, saying she "is more than just a character."
"She's a feeling. She is strength. She is grace. She is wit. She is femininity at its finest. She knows what she wants and she gets it. She doesn't need anyone to rescue her because she rescues herself and even rescues the rescuers," she gushed. "And no one could have played her like my mother."
Lourd said she has now "passed the torch -- or in this case, lightsaber" on to her own two children, Kingston and Jackson.
"I feel so lucky that even though they won't get to meet my mom, they will get to know a piece of her through Leia, and I will get to tell them that the little lady in the TV is my mommy, their grandmommy," she said, getting teary-eyed.
Lourd spoke about the universal appeal of Leia, saying the character is "a family heirloom -- and not just for my family."
"People's love for Leia didn't die with my mom," she said. "It continues to get passed on from generation to generation, just like my mom passed it on to me, and I am now passing it on to my children, and hopefully they will pass it on to theirs."
Lourd closed out her speech saying her mom was more than her "Star Wars" character, noting her other acting roles, the seven books she wrote, including "Postcards From the Edge," and her always hilarious Twitter feed.
She also praised her mother for being open about her mental health struggles.
"One of my favorite quotes of hers is, 'Take your broken heart and make it into art,' and she did just that," she explained.
"My mom was glitter," she added. "She covered her world in it, both literally and metaphorically. She left a mark of her sparkle on everyone she met."
Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker -- Leia's twin brother -- in "Star Wars," and whom Lourd called her "space uncle," also spoke at the event.
In his speech, Hamill reminisced about how he first met Fisher when she was 19 and he was 24 and remembered her as a "gorgeous, fiercely independent, and ferociously funny take-charge woman who took our collective breath away."
"I'll never stop missing her," he said. "But I'm so thankful we had her as long as we did."
Ana Martinez, the producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, previously opened up about the event honoring Fisher in a release, saying she "will join her 'Star Wars' co-stars and fellow Walk of Famers Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford on this historic sidewalk."
Martinez added at the time, "I am happy to add that her star is just a few feet away from the star of Mark Hamill and across the street from the star of her legendary mother Debbie Reynolds!"
Reynolds received her star in January 1997, while Ford and Hamill received theirs in May 2003 and March 2018, respectively.
Best known for her roles in films like "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," Reynolds died at the age of 84 on Dec. 28, 2016, just one day after her daughter.