Actress Jennifer Grey, 63, is opening up about her time on the hit 1990’s sitcom, “Friends” – and why it was ultimately cut short.
The “Dirty Dancing” star played the role of Mindy for one episode, who teams up with Rachel Greene – Jennifer Aniston’s character – to confront orthodontist Barry about his cheating ways.
Nevertheless, Grey revealed that she was plagued with anxiety during her time on the show, which is what led her to show down a reprising role.
“I used to be a fan of the show, and I got the decision to do it,” Grey told Media Village in an interview this week. “Then once I did it, I had such bad anxiety because they kept changing the script.”
She continued, explaining that it was difficult to play a guest role on the sitcom because things kept changing.
“It’s very hard to be a guest star since you’re not a component of it, and also you’re really attempting to figure all of it out,” she said. “They were attempting to determine what the character was, what the scene was, and it was changing, and changing, and changing. All of it made me so anxious that I could barely do it.”
Grey explained that on the time, she had quite a lot of “performance anxiety,” though she may not have realized it within the moment.
Anxiety was something that she would carry together with her during certain parts of her profession – including when she was asked to be a component of “Saturday Night Live.”
“I all the time just [felt] like I needed I had the flexibility to do things,” she admitted. “Like once they asked me to do Saturday Night Live, I just couldn’t. I said ‘No.’ I used to be just too scared.”
During season two, Mindy got here back for an additional appearance, but this time, her character was played by Jana Marie Hupp and never Grey, who had turned the role down.
“It makes me sad that I might say no to continuing on “Friends” or doing “Saturday Night Live” due to my anxiety,” Grey told the outlet.
“The reality is, I needed I had people to assist me navigate that form of fear. But I couldn’t be there until I used to be there.”
Nevertheless, since “Friends,” Grey has pushed herself to beat her fears, and even went on to star on season 11 of “Dancing With The Stars” in 2010, and ended up winning the competition with partner Derek Hough.
Through the show, she paid tribute to her “Dirty Dancing” costar Patrick Swayze, performing a Viennese waltz to the song “These Arms of Mine,” which was a tune featured on the movie’s soundtrack, based on Entertainment Weekly.
And, it looks like Grey will proceed to attempt to beat her anxiety and tackle more acting roles – last yr, it was announced that she could be returning to star within the upcoming sequel of the 1987 hit, “Dirty Dancing.”
She is going to reprise her role of Frances “Baby” Houseman.
This isn’t the primary time that “Dirty Dancing” has tried to expand into other projects – in 2004, they made a prequel movie called ““Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” which didn’t have much to do with the unique flick.
In 2017, ABC placed on a made-for-TV “Dirty Dancing” remake that spanned a three-hour time slot.
