The project that made Stevie Nicks want to “run away and hide forever”
Stevie Nicks knows better than anyone what it’s like to build a career in a constant cloud of imposter syndrome.
She knew what it felt like early on, writing songs at home while her lifelong musical partner, Lindsey Buckingham, went out to make ends meet, unsure she would make it, only that she really wanted to. And then when she became a major star herself, she had new battles to fight, like being her own advocate in spaces that consisted mostly of lording men.
Along the way, Nicks had to endure the scrutiny that comes with public perception and how, as a woman in music whose appearance changed as she grew older, it became harder to ‘please everybody’ who still clung to the old version she’d long since said goodbye to. She is one of the biggest and most prominent guiding figures in today’s musical landscape, but she’s only made it there by knowing exactly what it’s like at the bottom of the trenches.
But even now, Nicks feels that familiar sting of uncertainty, her own insecurities calling out whenever she does anything new. Even as one of the biggest and most legendary names in rock, she still knows what it’s like to brace for impact and ride the wave of impending doom, which is also why, sometimes, when things feel too far out of her usual terrain, she feels inclined to turn them down.
This was the case with her episode of American Horror Story: Coven. Nicks had been approached about being involved and immediately wanted to turn away as she didn’t consider herself an actor, or even a passable one at that, and so stepping into any kind of role where she’d be criticised and scrutinised onscreen felt like the scariest thing in the world. Eventually, she said yes, resulting in an iconic episode while introducing her legacy to a new generation of fans.
However, even when she’d already made the decision, she was still unsure, and talking to the LA Times just before the episode aired, Nicks said she wanted to “run away and hide forever” so that she didn’t have to see people’s thoughts on her performance: “I have never had much faith in me as an actress. I wasn’t initially going to be on the show”.
Recalling how she originally thought they just wanted to use her music, when creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck first told her about the idea, and how the theme anchored one character’s love for Nicks as “her friend and her mom and her conscious”, she’d said yes because “that’s what I’ve always ever wanted to be to anybody with my songs”, but then they actually wanted her to be in the show, and she wanted to run for the hills.
She’d tried to figure out a way to show her face without actually acting, initially floating the idea that she could drift in and out like something out of a dream, but the script showed there was more to it than ephemerality. However, once she pulled it off, any residual imposter syndrome ended up fizzling out into just that: a manifestation of fabricated paranoia, nothing comparable to how dignified and singular her cameo came across on the screen.
