Jennifer Grey Reveals the Real Reason She Was Recast on ‘Friends’ in Raw Interview
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Jennifer Grey opened up about experiencing “bad” anxiety while acting on Friends.
Grey portrayed Rachel Green’s best friend and maid of honor Mindy Hunter for one episode before the role was recast.
“I didn’t know at the time what was going on with me,” she said.
Casual Friends viewers may have watched most episodes without ever noticing that Rachel Green’s best friend and maid of honor, Mindy Hunter, (who ultimately married the man Green left at the alter), was actually portrayed by two different actresses. One of them was Dirty Dancing star Jennifer Grey, who initially played the part but declined to return due to “bad” performance anxiety, Grey recently told MediaVillage.com. At the time, she simply didn’t have the support she needed to manage the mental health dilemma.
Grey, now 63, explained that the anxiety stemmed from poorly communicated, consistent changes to her scenes and character, which was compounded by her feeling detached from the bigger picture as a guest star.
“I was a fan of the show, and I got the call to do it. Then when I did it, I had such bad anxiety because they kept changing the script,” she said. “It’s very hard to be a guest star because you’re not a part of it, and you’re really trying to figure it all out. They were trying to figure out what the character was, what the scene was, and it was changing, and changing, and changing. It all made me so anxious that I could barely do it.”
In retrospect, Grey sees that her anxiety made the situation worse, but at the time, she didn’t have that clarity. “I didn’t know at the time what was going on with me,” she said. “But I had a lot of performance anxiety, and I just didn’t understand at that time that I needed help in the anxiety department.”
After Grey’s first episode, Friends asked her back, but she didn’t accept, and the role was refilled by Jana Marie Hupp. “It makes me sad that I would say no to continuing on Friends or doing Saturday Night Live because of my anxiety,” she recalled. “The truth is, I wished I had people to help me navigate that kind of fear. But I couldn’t be there until I was there.”
Now, she’s grateful that the experience made her more self-aware, even if it was difficult to endure. “Everything you do in life, especially the hard things, the really painful, difficult things, are usually the things that are the most instructive and helpful,” she explained. “In life, I always learn more from things that you feel like a failure at, and the successes, you don’t learn as much, although, they might be fun. But it’s all a part of life.”
Grey’s acting career was also impacted by her experience with plastic surgery. “In the world’s eyes, I was no longer me,” she told People last year. So, she spent much of it in voice acting roles, and did conquer some fears by winning Dancing With the Stars in 2010. And now, at 63, she is back in business with her lead role as evangelical weight loss guru Gwen Shamblin in Lifetime’s Starving for Salvation, which is based off of true events.
In other words, Grey is entering her prime. “I believe in my heart that the second half of a woman’s life is the best half,” she told People. “I can’t speak to a man as I’ve never been one, but I will tell you that my experience is the second half is the best half. I’m sure of it. I’ve never felt what I’m feeling these days.”
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