Jennifer Grey Talks Her 'Friends' Role, Explains Why She Couldn't Reprise It & Reveals Another Gig She Had to Turn Down

Jennifer Grey opened up about her role on the first season of Friends.

The 63-year-old Dirty Dancing icon appeared in the very first season of the show, playing Mindy. If you forgot, she was best friends with Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) before she wound up marrying the man Rachel left at the altar.

Jennifer only made one appearance in the role, which was later recast with Jana Marie Hupp taking over the part.

What happened? The actress explained in a recent interview. She also revealed another big part that she was unable to accept for similar reasons.

Read more about Jennifer Grey’s memories of Friends and why she had to give up the part…

Speaking to MediaVillage, she explained that she was already “a fan of the show” when she got the offer.

“Then when I did it, I had such bad anxiety because they kept changing the script. 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,” she explained.

Jennifer continued, noting that she “had a lot of performance anxiety, and I just didn’t understand at that time that I needed help in the anxiety department.”

Her anxiety was so bad that she passed on the chance to return to Friends and also was unwilling to host Saturday Night Live.

“It makes me sad that I would say no to continuing on Friends or doing Saturday Night Live because of my anxiety. The truth is, I wished I had people to help me navigate that kind of fear,” she said. “But I couldn’t be there until I was there.”

Another Friends guest star talked about how her boyfriend reacted to her landing the part and how she used the project to get bigger projects.

Is there any chance for a Friends reboot?