Billie Lourd has revealed details of the last conversations she had with her mother Carrie Fisher and her grandmother Debbie Reynolds.
The Scream Queens actress lost both women on consecutive days in December 2016.
Speaking to her American Horror Story co-star Sarah Paulson in Town & Country magazine she said: “Debbie was still encouraging me to put an act together.
“Literally three days before she died, she was like, ‘What numbers are you going to put in your act? Who are you going to impersonate?’
“I said, ‘I don’t think people do acts as much anymore.’ And she came back, ‘That’s why if you do one you’ll be more successful than anyone else. The act is a dying art, and someone needs to revive it.’”
She said the last time she saw her mother she encouraged her in her acting.
She said: “The last time I saw her in person, this episode of Scream Queens was on, and it was a big episode for me.
“I had tonnes of scenes, and I was so hard on myself about it — I hated how I looked, hated my performance. I was really frustrated.
“She told me, ‘Come over right now. I want to watch this with you.’ And she made me sit down and watch it, and she forced me to see the good parts.
“She was incredible like that. But she was really hard on me, saying, ‘Shut up, you’re great in this. Have faith in yourself. Be more confident.’”
However, Lourd admitted that Fisher, Reynolds, and her father (talent agent Bryan Lourd) had not encouraged her love of acting to begin with.
She said: “I think in a normal family they would have looked at me and been like, ‘Hey, this kid’s a performer.’
“But I was so scared. I was embarrassed, honestly. Because they were like, ‘This is going to be a really shitty lifestyle, and everyone’s going to be scrutinising you deeply and constantly.’
“My mom wrote five books and a one-woman show; they didn’t want more things for people to be able to Google about me.”
Lourd, 25, added that she had had a hard time with Fisher sharing so many private details through her work.
She said: “I had a hard time with it in the beginning.
“I was very protective of my dad and would stop her and be like, ‘Can you take out that thing where you say, ‘I turned him gay.’ Can we not have that on Broadway?'”
Lourd also shared that her mother had once tried to adopt a sibling for her.
She said: “I always wanted siblings. I was bummed that I didn’t have any — even just to be a witness.
“Sometimes when crazy things were happening, I wanted to ask, ‘Is this just me?’
“My mom tried to adopt a kid. You know when you ask for a puppy? I asked for a sister.
“One year I was like, ‘Hey, Mom, I want a sister.’ We tried to adopt — like, we did a whole thing, and, no, the home study was not strong.”
The actress said that she was getting used to being known in her own right since her bereavements.
She said: “I’ve always kind of lived in their shadows, and now is the first time in my life when I get to own my life and stand on my own.
“I love being my mother’s daughter, and it’s something I always will be, but now I get to be just Billie.
“It’s a lot of pressure, because she had such an incredible legacy, and now I have to uphold that and make it evolve in my own way.”
