Harvard honoring Carrie Fisher, ‘Star Wars’ actress and mental health straight-talker

Carrie Fisher, the actress best known for playing Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” movies, is in Cambridge this week to accept a lifetime achievement award at Harvard.

Fisher is the 2016 recipient of recognition from The Humanist Hub in partnership with the Harvard College Community of Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics.

“This award, created in 2007, honors an individual whose life and contributions to popular culture and society exemplify the values of Humanism: compassion, creativity, and honesty, among others,” reads a description of the event, scheduled for Monday night at 8 p.m. at the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

The group wrote online that the award celebrates Fisher’s writing and her efforts to raise awareness about mental illness and addiction.

The actress has starred in an autobiographical one-woman play called “Wishful Drinking” and penned a memoir by the same name.

She’s spoken out frequently and candidly about her bipolar disorder, taking part in countless Q&A’s and on-air interviews.

“I have a chemical imbalance that, in its most extreme state, will lead me to a mental hospital,” Fisher once said in an interview with Diane Sawyer. “I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I’m still surviving it, but bring it on.”

The Huffington Post, in a round-up of Fisher’s public pronouncements, dubbed her “An O.G. Mental Health Hero.”

“Her forthright activism and outspokenness about addiction, mental illness and agnosticism have advanced public discourse on these issues with creativity and empathy,” Humanist Hub wrote on its website.

The list of celebrities honored with the group’s Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism include Salman Rushdie, Stephen Fry and Seth MacFarlane.

Tickets for the award ceremony were still available as of early afternoon Monday.