Jennifer Grey reveals why she didn’t return to ‘Friends’

Jennifer Grey made her first appearance on ‘Friends’ in the first season. She played Mindy, Rachel’s (Jennifer Aniston) former best friend and maid of honor who was having a secret affair with her fiancé Barry.

Later in the season, Mindy ends up engaged to Barry and Rachel ends up as the other woman. Eventually, Mindy and Rachel team up to confront Barry and his cheating ways.

However, the ‘Dirty Dancing’ star told MediaVillage that while she was on ‘Friends’ she had “a lot of performance anxiety.’ She claims to have struggled and knew she needed help.

Why didn’t Grey reprise her role as Mindy?

Her anxiety was what ultimately led to her declining to reprise her role on the successful NBC sitcom. Later the role of Mindy was recast with actress Jana Marie Hupp.

“When they asked me to come back, I said I couldn’t,” she said. Grey also revealed that she declined an offer to host SNL around the same time.

“They got someone else to play the role. 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. But I couldn’t be there until I was there.”

Grey said she learned from the experience adding, “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.”

Script changes

The actress also explained that script changes also fueled her anxiety.

“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,” she explained.

She continued, “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.”