Carrie Fisher appears on stage at Seattle Repertory Theatre this month in her one-woman confessional Wishful Drinking, but she’s been living her life on the page ever since she fictionalized herself as Hollywood actress Suzanne Vale for her best-selling 1987 debut novel Postcards from the Edge (which she later adapted into a riotously funny/sad film starring Meryl Streep). She talked to me over the phone about writing, Drinking, mom Debbie Reynolds, depression, and that damn outfit from Return of the Jedi.

Does writing something that allows you to deal with what you’ve experienced make you feel better? It does. There’s a reason in AA that they have you share at the podium. One of the things they say is “You’re only as sick as your secrets.” Given that I’m pretty well.

Are you ever worried about oversharing? Is there such a thing? You find out as you go. The only way you could overshare is if it hurt someone else somehow—if it’s not just your truth. If it’s just your truth, then I don’t know if you can overshare.

Has there been anything in the show that has bothered anybody? Is your mother bothered, for instance, by your impersonation of her? [Laughs] Oh, no. My mother’s come to the show many times and has come up on stage with me. She loves it.

What about Paul Simon? Don’t you discuss intimate details of your marriage? Not really. I mean, I don’t say anything negative about him. I’m careful not to say too much. And I always show it to the person I’ve written about so they can have the opportunity to say whether it does bother them.

And has anyone ever said, “Carrie, don’t do that”? Paul had me change a little something. It was more to do with the way he worked than with something else.

Do you mostly get audiences shocked by what you’re saying or do people seem to laugh with it? There are both responses, but mostly I find a positive response to it. A lot of people feel good because they can relate to it or they feel good because they can’t.

Was it your mother who encouraged you to go on stage? Well, I was raised doing nightclub work. That’s the talent she handed down. Both my parents are performers. But it was something I did not like as a kid. I mean, I did it—I worked in her act from when I was 13 to about 16.

And you got into movies so early. Yeah. Too early, really. Well, there’s no such thing. Who knows? But I had stage fright, so it took me this long to get over that.

You’ve written very movingly about having trouble “feeling” your life. Can you feel it now? Yeah—that’s not always a good thing. Because of my mood disorder, my perspective is shot. You’re looking at something and the thing that should make you feel good you can’t feel—you feel badly about something you should feel good about. So, yes, I still have that. And it’s a terrible thing to have all the gifts that I have been given and to find yourself in a depression. And that’s why I say I can’t feel my life. What I mean by that is I can’t feel the good parts. And everybody has a version of that.

Do you end up feeling happier when you’re, as you once put it, “a spy in the house” of you as opposed to when you’re in the house of you? Yeah, because you have some distance on it. When you’re writing about it, it detaches you a little bit. That’s a great thing when you’re depressed. That’s why you’re more likely to write when you’re depressed. I can write when I’m depressed but I can verbally write when I’m manic. Everything comes out of my mouth like it’s been written before. When I’m manic my instrument at that point is me, so I can tape what I’m saying and some of it looks like writing. So that’s some of the stuff that went in the show. I didn’t write it, I spoke it—or it wrote me. It’s like having possession of this fantastic instrument that does things on its own. In that way it’s a blessing. But then if you take that whole instrument and turn it against you—that’s not great.

What question do you get asked most often? Did I know Star Wars was going to be that big of a hit.

Most people I asked about you wanted to know how you felt in Return of the Jedi wearing that costume while tied to Jabba the Hut. Well, I was frustrated because it was the one time in the movie that they took my clothes off and then I didn’t have any dialogue. When I was in that outfit I had to sit perfectly still so there would be no little crease in my side—that’s what they wanted. The outfit was this kind of plastic so it didn’t adhere to your stomach. Boba Fett was behind me and if I was lying down on Jabba the Hutt he could see all the way to Florida.

Did you ever think Meryl Streep would play you? [Laughs] It’s ridiculous. It’s the new, improved me. I wish she’d keep doing it.

When you were writing that movie did you have casting in mind? No! And I would never have thought of that, anyway.

You didn’t have anyone in mind? You know, if there was anybody, I may have thought Debra Winger. Because, you know, Meryl certainly doesn’t seem half-Jewish and she doesn’t seem that fucked-up. She can play fucked-up. But Debra Winger seems fucked-up. And now, Mary-Louise Parker or Catherine Keener—someone who can’t seem to stay inside their lines.

Well, thanks for talking to me. And break a leg when you’re here. I no doubt will—or I’ll feel like I have.