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If Lucy Lawless had had her way, her cult favorite impersonation of Stevie Nicks may never have happened.
On the latest episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, the host asked Lawless, 56, about her 1998 appearance on Saturday Night Live. Specifically, Rosenbaum wanted to know all about “Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup,” a sketch in which the Xena: Warrior Princess star spoofed Nicks in a commercial for the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman’s imaginary Sedona, Ariz., Tex-Mex restaurant.
"I had caught a glimpse of Stevie Nicks in some show," Lawless shared with Rosenbaum. "Her eyes were incredibly dark for some reason. So, I requested them — 'Is it possible to get contacts like that?' They quickly arranged for me to get fitted and popped those in for the skit. I couldn't see a thing, and it left me feeling quite isolated in my thoughts."
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At the time, Nicks was experiencing a career resurgence, thanks to Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 live reunion album The Dance and an accompanying MTV special, as well as her own solo career spanning 1998 box set Enchanted.
In 2020, former SNL writer Hugh Fink explained to The Ringer that the "Fajita Roundup" sketch was meant to play up the singer’s witchy, hippie vibe — complete with a tambourine and a wind machine blowing Lawless’ blond wig in the fake commercial — while also lampooning what a ’70s rock super star might be doing two decades after their heyday.
However, Lawless shared with Rosenbaum that even though she had enjoyed Nicks's music during her childhood, she wasn't immediately convinced by the unusual sketch.
“I’m wearing these ridiculous contacts, right? And honestly, I found the skit unamusing,” she remarked. “The cultural references flew right over my head. Perhaps that was the secret sauce—my lack of laughter.”
In fact, she was so uncertain about the sketch, she actually asked SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels to cut it.
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She remembered telling Lorne, “Lorne, come on, it’s really not amusing. Can you please stop?” To which he replied, “Absolutely not. I believe it’s going to be a sleeper hit.”
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It turns out Michaels was right. While “Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup” is far from one of SNL’s most famous, it continues to show up on social media to this day. Ahead of Nicks’ October 2024 appearance on SNL — her first since 1983 — more than one fan took to social media hoping that either the singer or host Ariana Grande would revive the sketch.
For her part, Nicks loved the sketch. According to The Ringer, the “Rhiannon” singer told Madison magazine in 2011 that it was “one of my all-time favorite things ever.”
Nicks expressed, “When everyone warned me, I thought, ‘Oh no, this is going to be terrible…’ But it turned out to be the opposite. Lucy looked incredible and embodied my essence perfectly. I couldn’t have been more thrilled.”
Read the original article on People
