sleemo:

She spent weekends watching movies with Mark Hamill and his family. She shared a trainer with Daisy Ridley, and eventually learned how to push a car. (“I’m serious! Little ol’ me.”)

But Tran found herself worrying; this was her first big gig and she was treading very carefully, often worried she might offend someone. Then she met Carrie Fisher.

“What a woman,” Tran nodded pointedly. “The best thing about Carrie that I witnessed was that she was just purely honest. No matter how messy that was, or how complicated that was.”

While Tran agonized over adhering to her trainer’s fitness regimen, Fisher showed up and walked the treadmill, sipping a Coke and smoking a cigarette.

“I don’t know how to explain it — without even protecting me, she was. Just by being herself,” Tran said.

But there was one caveat to all of her dreams seemingly coming true: Tran wasn’t used to living without her established support system.

“I was scared, I was alone, I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing,” she said. “I remember crying because I wanted my friends to experience it.”

To combat the isolation, she joined an improv class in London, kept journaling (“I have 25 journals now that’s just me and my feelings on paper”), and leaned heavily on her castmates, especially John Boyega — the actor she’ll likely be sharing the most screentime with in The Last Jedi.

“John is someone who I feel like I immediately was able to mesh with,” Tran said of working with the actor. “We connect on different levels because our parents are immigrants, we’re both people of color, nerds, and he’s just hilarious.”

— From Kelly’s interview with Buzzfeed News