Why Billie Lourd Says Her “Last Showgirl” Role ‘Reminded Me So Much of My Mom and Grandma’ (Exclusive)

Lourd tells PEOPLE she "fell in love" with the film's script because of all the ways she related to her character in Gia Coppola's film

Filming The Last Showgirl was more than just a job for Billie Lourd.

While speaking with PEOPLE exclusively at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Friday, Sept. 6, the Booksmart star, 32, reflected on what playing her character in Gia Coppola's film has meant to her.

"That's so weird, a movie about Vegas and mothers and daughters... did I relate to that? 100 percent," the actress jokes.

Billie's mother Carrie Fisher died in December 2016 at the age of 60 and her grandmother Debbie Reynolds died a day after her daughter at the age of 84.

Lourd says that she "fell in love" with Coppola's script upon first reading it because she related it to her family history.

Related: Billie Lourd Says 'Queen' Pamela Anderson Is 'the Most Hardworking, Dedicated Actress' (Exclusive)

"I was so excited to get to be involved in it because it reminded me so much of my mom and grandma," she says of Fisher and Reynolds. "My grandma was a showgirl in her own right and my mom was a little bit of the character that I got to play."

"So, it was really cathartic and incredible to get to be in this movie and play this role. It was really cool," she adds.

Lourd stars alongside Pamela Anderson's Shelley in the film. Per TIFF's official synopsis of The Last Showgirl, Shelley "tries to reconnect with a daughter she hardly knows" (Lourd), after learning that her job in the last traditional show on the Vegas strip is ending.

The reconciliation attempt "proves just as difficult as losing the only job she has ever had," the synopsis says.

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Reynolds signed a historic million-dollar contract to perform a holiday season residency at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in 1962, per the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. Fisher and her brother, Todd also appeared in the show with their mom.

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