Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, has said she took cocaine on set during filming of the second movie in the famous space opera saga.

Fisher, in Sydney to promote a standup comedy show based on her autobiography Wishful Drinking, told Associated Press she did not particularly like the drug but was intent on getting high. She said her life had been defined by addiction, and told of stints in psychiatric hospitals and rehab clinics as well as of being rushed to hospital at least once following an overdose.

"We did cocaine on the set of [The] Empire [Strikes Back], in the ice planet," Fisher said. "I didn't even like coke that much. It was just a case of getting on whatever train I needed to take to get high."

The one-time star now works as a writer and comic, with her performances as Leia in the Star Wars trilogy by far her most notable screen work. As well as Wishful Drinking, Fisher wrote the 1987 semi-autobiographical novel Postcards From the Edge, about an actor trying to put her life together after a drug overdose. It was adapted into a film by Mike Nichols in 1990, with female lead Meryl Streep receiving an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Fisher said John Belushi – who died of a drug overdose in 1982 – once told her she had a problem. "Slowly I realised I was doing a bit more drugs than other people and losing my choice in the matter," she said. "If I'd been addicted to booze I'd be dead now, because you just go out and get it."

The actor refused to blame family background or her celebrity status for her problems. She is the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, who left the family to start a relationship with Elizabeth Taylor when she was two.

"It's always been my responsibility," she said. "If it was Hollywood [that was to blame] then we'd all be dope addicts."