Nikki Nash is the author of the new memoir Collateral Stardust: Chasing Warren Beatty and Other Foolish Things. She also has written the book 72 Raisins. She worked as an associate director on a variety of TV shows, including 12 years with Conan O'Brien.
Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?
A: The surface answer would be that, over the years, I’ve told people some of these stories, for example: when I was 16, I wore a nun’s habit to buy alcohol so I wouldn’t get carded. This always got a laugh.
After I recounted many other nutty stories, people eventually said, “You should write a book,” and I thought I would one day. However, I knew I didn’t want to write a “look at me” book, or a book about all the fun people I dated, or all the adventures I’ve had, or how fabulous I am. That is selfish writing and ultimately boring. And not true.
I did, however, know that the stories were funny, but for something to be funny, I knew I’d need to investigate and understand the pain underneath the humor. It took me 10 years to ponder tone and POV, and when hearing loss and COVID ended my job in television, I knew I needed something fun I could do at home, in silence, that required solving problems.
On a deeper level—though I didn't realize it then—I must’ve felt it was time to strip away the laminated persona I’d unconsciously presented to myself and others over the years. Investigate the secrets. Not secrets like who I slept with, but secret shame over imperfections, foibles, foolishness, my desire for fame, my self-doubt about being at all lovable.
At first, it may seem like a book about chasing a childhood idol, but beneath that are questions: Why was it necessary to search for a larger-than-life love, how could I understand and embrace—rather than reject—pain, and ultimately, how did I learn to be human?
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title didn’t come first in a flash of inspiration. Instead, I like to put themes and ideas and concepts into the percolator and leave it alone.
The book explored the ideas of fame, longing, and deferred satisfaction, and I found myself in situations where I was adjunct to a famous person (celebrity adjacent in the current parlance) but still got a buzz. I thought about the lure of stardust—the kind of stardust Warren [Beatty] had (in my mind) and how and when I needed a dose of that stardust.
After writing most of the book, the title came to me in what felt like a flash, forgetting that I'd been throwing things into the percolator and the title wouldn’t materialize until the book had.
Stardust is ephemeral, so I needed constant dosing to get the chemical boost, in conjunction for a time with drugs and alcohol, until I’d matured enough to see the truth: that collateral stardust is really just a puff of distracting sparkle, and it’s gone.
Q: How would you describe your relationship with Warren Beatty?
A: The young Nikki would see it as a slow-building relationship that included engagement, consistency, and contact. That it was something that mattered, or would matter.
But as I both got older, I saw more clearly (as the stardust lost its potency) that I’d created most of the relationship. I’d initiated most of the calls. Granted, Warren answered, and I’m grateful for that, as I needed that contact to pull me through life, but the relationship was more of an overlay that I’d created and maintained by calling him.
Warren was incredibly kind, and bluntly honest when I needed it, but I have a feeling that if I hadn’t kept making contact, he would’ve forgotten about me, but I was determined to have more, and he just sort of went along with it. He was a barometer of sorts—as I looked back at our times together—of my growth.
When I finished the first draft of the book, I realized that by owning all my own demons and pain and fabrications, I no longer needed him to distract me from the truth of myself.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write this book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: I think the takeaway for me was the amazing paradox that showing all my foibles and flaws and fears (that’s a lot of alliteration) led to greater openness and connection with others. The things I feared being seen were the things that made me human and eventually more open to others.
Once it’s all out there, there is nothing to “protect” (constant self-protecting takes a lot of energy) and I am now simply myself. I can talk to strangers more easily. I have nothing to prove. And I am curious about others.
Being free would have been enough of a takeaway. However, having people tell me how the book opened them up, or comforted them, is amazing.
People have reached out to tell me about their feelings of longing, or their fears, or the lure of fame, and I love connecting with people on this deeper level. It makes me so happy.
Anyone can do whatever they want, but there is such freedom in being oneself. I have compassion for myself, for what I did to survive, and now I have a greater capacity to love others. It’s hard to love others while defending oneself.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My first book, 72 Raisins, was fiction, but it was based on a head writer on a version of Conan O’Brien’s show. I knew that world, and kept to a singular point of view (for the most part).
Collateral Stardust, on the other hand, is nonfiction (duh) with a singular and subjective point of view.
I wanted a different challenge. My new book is a mystery/thriller with multiple points of view, and an intricate story. It’s been fun and freeing to have tertiary characters claim more space and become primary characters. It is strange to collaborate with fictional characters.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I will close with my favorite Colette quote, which is the book's epigraph. “You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”
Another thing just came to mind from a book I read 40 years ago. (I think it was called The Seat of the Soul, back when I was reading more spiritual stuff.) The soul doesn’t want consistency; it wants to be heard.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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