Stevie Nicks Praises ‘Magnificent’ Greta Gerwig for Barbie: ‘What a Challenge That Was’ (Exclusive)

Barbie he earned Stevie Nicks’ stamp.

Nicks, who recently unveiled her own Barbie doll, tells PEOPLE that she “loves” the movie and gave director-writer Greta Gerwig special props.

The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman, who wrote some of the biggest hits in the rock ‘n’ roll canon, says she doesn’t think she could achieve what Gerwig, 40, did with Barbie.

‘Barbie’ has overtaken ‘Avengers’ at the domestic box office as it continues to break records

“I thought the director was magnificent,” says Nicks, 75, adding that if she had the same impulse (“go just write a Barbie story”) she wouldn’t know where to start.

“We’d say, like, ‘Well, how should I do it? What should it be about? Is there something specific going on in it?’ ” she says.

“Greta, she’s like, ‘Oh, okay. I’m up to the challenge,'” Nicks says. “And what a challenge it was, in my opinion.”

‘Barbie’ writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach. Steve Granitz/WireImage

The singer-songwriter says: “If someone had told me that, I would have hoped to have a husband or a partner” like Gerwig’s partner and Barbie co-writer Noah Baumbach.

“She had someone who was a sounding board for both of them to write it,” adds Nicks. “Because if it was just you sitting in your house at your desk trying to write that story without anyone to bounce off of or really write with, it would be very difficult.”

“It would be a song that had no end,” she says.

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Even without his new Barbie doll, the Fleetwood Mac hitmaker has a special connection to the film. She remembers owning the first Barbie, the striped swimsuit-wearing doll that Margot Robbie embodies at the beginning of the film.

But seeing her childhood doll on screen wasn’t necessarily her favorite moment.

“I had a lot of favorite parts,” Nicks says. “I especially liked when she had a choice between Birkenstocks and lounges.”

Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in ‘Barbie’ during one of Stevie Nicks’ favorite scenes.

Pictures by Warner Bros

Second singer of “Landslide”. Barbie the highlights were all products of Ryan Gosling’s “wonderful” portrayal of Ken. “I thought he was so funny,” she says.

Nicks says she “loved” the moment when Ken asks Barbie to hang out at her dream house and when “he jumps in the back of the Corvette when she’s on the road and she says, ‘What are you doing?’ ”

“He says, ‘I’m going with you because if there’s no Barbie, there’s no Ken,'” Nicks recalls with a laugh. “I thought, ‘This is so funny, because it’s the opposite.’ ”

“You feel sorry for Ken,” she adds. “Poor Ken.”

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The box office hit was especially enjoyable for Nicks because she watched it with her longtime collaborator and “Gemini twin,” guitarist Waddy Wachtel.

The “Dreams” singer, who rented out the movie theater with her band, says she “ended up” in a seat next to Wachtel, 76, who has been by her side since her debut solo album. Bella Donna. (The pair first collaborated on her pre-Fleetwood Mac project, Buckingham Nicks, 50 years ago.)

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Waddy Wachtel and Stevie Nicks in 2011.

Maury Phillips/WireImage

“We were really like the only people in the theater watching it, and it was so amazing because I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know. He might not like this.’ Well, he loved it,” says Nicks. “Whenever I would cry, he would cry… or he would laugh when I laughed. He would totally laugh.”

After the check-out was announced, Nicks says she told Wachtel, “You know what, Waddy? There’s no one I’d rather watch this for Barbie movie with you.”

“Because male and female energy came together to watch this movie, and he loved and respected it,” says the singer. “AND [he] he respected feminism and respected Barbie and respected her choices, just as he respects me and my choices and my feminist leanings.”

“It was great, I liked it,” he adds.

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Source: HIS Education