At just eight years old, Tiler Peck made her music video debut in a particularly unforgettable way: as one of the dancing children dressed in business suits in Fiona Apple’s “Paper Bag” video, directed by none other than Paul Thomas Anderson.
Nearly 30 years later, Peck has moved up to very different stages: she’s a longtime principal dancer with New York City Ballet, one of the most acclaimed ballerinas in the world, a 2026 Emmy-winner and a respected choreographer in her own right who recently premiered her second full-length work for NYCB.
But while her latest major dance role does involve a tutu, it brought her back to the world of pop music. Peck choreographed and stars in Olivia Rodrigo’s “Stupid Song” video, in which the singer-songwriter wanders around New York’s Upper West Side followed by a troupe of ballerinas who cluster, pirouette and, at one point, mosh around her.
The “Stupid Song” video’s director, Mitch Ryan (who directed Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” visual, as well as work for Charli xcx, Addison Rae and Rosalía) first reached out to Peck via her WME agent on the recommendation of video producer Cameron Sczempka. “I could tell within the first five minutes of the call they wanted to work with me, and I felt the same way,” Peck recalls. “Like, OK, this seems like a team that would be very collaborative. Mitch had an idea of how he wanted the video to look and feel, but he was really respectful of my knowledge of ballet and how I felt the dance should be.”
At that point, she hadn’t even heard “Stupid Song” yet. “They were keeping it really tight, they didn’t want the song to get leaked,” Peck explains. Once she did get to listen, though, things moved quickly: she had roughly a week to cast her dancers (one from American Ballet Theatre, the rest her NYCB colleagues; “I was like, OK, this has the potential to show ballet in an authentic and interesting way — I’m not just pulling from a pool of dancers”) and choreograph, with one dancer temporarily standing in for Rodrigo. The shoot was one day from six to eleven A.M. — the dancers had a hard out to get to their own 11:30 ballet rehearsals.
For Peck, who can’t say enough about Rodrigo as a dream collaborator, it feels like a full circle moment. “I loved working with Fiona — she was so cool,” Peck recalls of her first music video experience — which just so happened to be with one of Rodrigo’s direct inspirations. “[She and Olivia] definitely do have a similar vibe — that sort of ‘cool girl but not trying’ kind of vibe.”
Peck spoke to Billboard about stopping New York City traffic for ballerinas, Rodrigo’s tutu preferences, and why the pop star has an open invite to the ballet.
When Mitch was first describing his vision, what did he communicate to you that made you think this could be interesting to take on?
I kind of loved the fact that he wanted this etherealness of the ballerinas in the beginning, just being in their own place, and Olivia just sort of walking, not interacting with us, then getting to a place where we let our hair down. He was really into the moshing, and even I was like, “Oh my God, we’ve never done that, but that sounds really fun.” To show the different things a dancer can do was what kind of was interesting to me.
When in the process did you first meet Olivia?
My first meeting with her was the day before our shoot, presenting what I thought would look really nice. She came in at the end of our rehearsal, and she was watching it, and you could tell instantly that she liked it, because she was like, “Should I get up and try it?” — because we had somebody kind of standing in for her — and we were like, “Yes!” She was just down for anything, and super cool. She just wanted to be in the world so much, which I really respected.
The song starts out sounding like one kind of song, but it evolves over its course and ends in a very different vibe. As a choreographer, what inspiration did you find in that?
Honestly, that is where I feel the most dancing. I grew up dancing to these types of songs, and it’s why I liked contemporary and lyrical dance growing up. I could feel the music so deep within me, and when the lyrics are there, it just adds another layer, which is why actually it took me a lot longer to really understand ballet and classical music. And something about this song, I just felt it instantly, and so making the steps, it was like all I needed was her song, all I needed was the music and her lyrics to come up with the steps that I felt were right — just like how when I make a ballet now, the music is what drives me, and it tells you how you should feel. I [asked Olivia], “How is the rest of the album if this song is this good?” She’s like, “Well, this is one of my favorites.” The whole album is amazing.
I love how New York the video feels. You’re dancing in a crosswalk on Central Park West, right?
Yeah, it was Central Park West and like 70-something [street]. I said, “Oh my God, we’re gonna see so many people that know us and are like, what is going on?” [Laughs.] They didn’t stop traffic, they just kind of like waited for the traffic light, basically. The asphalt at least has grip, so it wasn’t slippery, and for a dancer the worst thing is a slippery floor, so that was nice.
Rodrigo and Peck (immediate right) with dancers from her “stupid song” music video (Photo credit: Olivia Parker).
It’s a little left to the viewer to decide what the dancers represent. They seem like real girls, but they also feel like something more abstract. What was your take on it?
My whole thing was that at the beginning of the song, it’s like we’re all existing and she was just kind of passing by — and then there’s that moment where she stops us, where we actually touch, and it’s like, “OK, now we’re sort of in this crew together.” It becomes more physical with her. So there’s a nice arc that just kind of happened that way with the storytelling. I think it came from Mitch telling me [that the dancers] just happen to be on the street, as opposed to like whether they’re in her imagination or anything else that’s left up for interpretation.
What struck you about Olivia as a performer?
I think she’s very natural — she’s able to sort of grab your attention and capture you without doing much, and I think that that’s kind of why [the video concept] works, because she just exists, you know what I mean? She doesn’t seem like she’s trying too hard, she’s literally just being, and as a dancer, that’s sometimes the most beautiful to watch: somebody just being, as opposed to being too performative. I think that’s why people are so touched by her, in a way.
Did you have input on the costumes too?
They definitely wanted tutus, and they [initially] wanted flat shoes, and I was like, no — if we’re doing this, we’re wearing pointe shoes. It’s easier to be on hard asphalt in a pointe shoe than a soft shoe, but it also gives us the ability to like, really do it. And then the costumes, I brought New York City Ballet practice tutus; they’re so much better than the ones you could just buy by the store.
[Olivia was] adamant that she wanted it to be pink. They had gone to a dance store and bought this pink tutu, but when I tell you what it looked like when they put it on us … I was like, “Guys, you cannot have us in this video and looking like models doing ballet.” [Laughs.] I had to get approval to dye [the practice tutus], and an NYCB costume shop lady that I know, Olga, she’s like a godsend, dyed our eight white tutus pink so I could make sure we felt authentic.
What was your interaction one-on-one with Olivia like — was she curious about you all as dancers?
Yeah, when were sitting between takes and talking, she wanted to know everything. She was like, “Oh my God, you guys have a show tonight?!” And she ended up sending us all a bouquet of flowers to the theater before our night show. It was so nice. And I could just tell she was fascinated by the whole ballet world. She was even getting the gossip [from us] — like, “That happens at the ballet?!” So that was fun.
Has she been to City Ballet before?
No, we did invite her, though, and she was like, “I would love that.” So now we have to get her to really come to a ballet.
Is there a chance that you’ll all get to perform with her again in some context?
I literally just thought about that — just telling her if it ever works out where she would want us to, just letting her know that we would love to. All of us girls had such a fun time with her, if she did ever want that to happen, we would so love to do that.
