Kelly Marie Tran found it difficult shooting Princess Leia scenes

Kelly Marie Tran admits it was difficult filming footage to go with Princess Leia's scenes in 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'.

Following Carrie Fisher's death in 2016, the team behind the blockbuster decided to use previous clips of the late Hollywood legend's iconic alter ego.

And the 30-year-old actress - who plays Rose Tico in the film - has admitted it was challenging for everyone else to "react" to Leia when she wasn't there in physical form.

Kelly told The Hollywood Reporter: "It's one thing to sit there, look at that footage and try to react to it, but a lot of the big group scenes felt like they were puzzle pieces if that makes sense.

"I think there were more reshoots on those scenes, specifically, to just try and make sure all of the performances matched up since she (Carrie Fisher) wasn't physically there."

There has been controversy surrounding Kelly's in the film, with many annoyed that Tico was given fewer scenes.

However, co-writer Chris Terrio denied this, suggesting that material featuring Kelly and Carrie was limited because the "photorealism" wasn't up to "standard".

He said: "One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie Fisher's footage in the way we wanted to.

"We thought we couldn't leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together ... As the process evolved, a few scenes we'd written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we'd hoped for. Those scenes, unfortunately, fell out of the film."

Chris added: "The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly -- so much so that we anchored her with our favourite person in this galaxy, General Leia."