Lucy Lawless Says She Begged Lorne Michaels to Cut Her 1998 Stevie NicksSNLSketch: 'I Didn't Think It Was Funny'

Mar. 15, 2025

Lucy Lawless and Stevie Nicks in 1998.Photo:Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty; Margaret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty; Margaret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

IfLucy Lawlesshad had her way, her cult favorite impersonation ofStevie Nicksmay never have happened.

On the latest episode ofMichael Rosenbaum’sInside of Youpodcast, the host asked Lawless, 56, about her 1998 appearance onSaturday Night Live. Specifically, Rosenbaum wanted to know all about “Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup,” a sketch in which theXena: Warrior Princessstar spoofed Nicks in a commercial for theFleetwood Macfrontwoman’s imaginary Sedona, Ariz., Tex-Mex restaurant.

“I’d seen Stevie Nicks on something,” Lawless told Rosenbaum. “She had really black eyes for whatever reason. And I asked them for these — ‘Can I have contacts like that?’ And they got me fitted real quick and then bunged these things in to do the skit. And I couldn’t see anybody, and I was really alone in my head.”

In 2020, formerSNLwriter Hugh Fink explained toThe Ringerthat 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.

But, Lawless told Rosenbaum, despite having been a fan of Nicks’s music as a kid, she wasn’t initially sold on the bizarre sketch.

“I’ve got these stupid contacts in right? And I did not think the skit was funny,” she said. “I didn’t understand the cultural references. So maybe that was the magic ingredient is that I didn’t think it was funny.”

In fact, she was so uncertain about the sketch, she actually askedSNLcreator and executive producerLorne Michaelsto cut it.

Lucy Lawless in 1995’s ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and in October 2024.Mca Tv/Renaissance/Kobal/Shutterstock; Don Arnold/WireImage

Mca Tv/Renaissance/Kobal/Shutterstock; Don Arnold/WireImage

“I said to Lorne, ‘Lorne, dude, you know, it’s not funny. Please cut it,’ ” she recalled. “He said, ‘No. No, I think it’s a sleeper hit.’ ”

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It turns out Michaels was right. While “Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup” is far from one ofSNL’s most famous, it continues to show up on social media to this day. Ahead ofNicks’ October 2024 appearance onSNL— her first since 1983 — more than one fan took to social media hoping thateither the singerorhost Ariana Grandewould revive the sketch.

For her part, Nicks loved the sketch. According toThe Ringer, the “Rhiannon” singer toldMadisonmagazine in 2011 that it was “one of my all-time favorite things ever.”

“When everybody told me, I was like, ‘Oh no, it’s going to be just awful …,’ ” Nicks said. “But it wasn’t. Lucy looked amazing, and she was amazing as me. So I could not have been happier.”

source: people.com