Jennifer Grey has been a part of some pretty iconic movies in her career, playing the jealous sister Jeannie in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the Baby that nobody puts in the corner in Dirty Dancing. She’s even made guest appearances on shows like Grey’s Anatomy, The Conners, and on Friends as Rachel Green’s former BFF Mindy. Grey only appeared on one episode of the Must-See TV sitcom, but it could have been more. The actress opened up about her anxiety, and the filming experience that caused her to turn down the opportunity to reprise the character.
Mindy showed up twice in the Friends-iverse. The first time was “The One With the Evil Orthodontist,” when she asked Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) to be her maid of honor when she became Mrs. Dr. Barry Farber, D.D.S., only to find out that Barry had cheated on both of them with each other. Jennifer Grey portrayed Mindy in that Season 1 episode, but she apparently didn't leave with memories of the experience, she told MediaVillage:
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. 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. I didn't know at the time what was going on with me. 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.
The sitcom was known for boasting A-list guest stars in its episodes, and Jennifer Aniston has said that actors were “terrified” to come on Friends, particularly film actors who weren’t used to performing in front of a studio audience. Tom Selleck was “scared to death,” he has admitted, during his 10-episode stint as Monica’s (Courteney Cox) sometimes boyfriend.
So while Jennifer Grey was not alone in the discomfort she felt on set — which apparently wasn’t helped by the showrunners literally flipping the script on her — it sounds like at the time she didn’t have the understanding or tools needed to deal with such anxiety. She continued:
I always just [felt] like I wished I had the ability to do things. Like when they asked me to do Saturday Night Live, I just couldn't. I said 'No.' I was just too scared. . . . When they asked me to come back, I said I couldn't. 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.
When Mindy appeared in Season 2 of Friends for “The One With Barry and Mindy’s Wedding,” it was Jana Marie Hupp in the role of Rachel’s best frenemy, rather than Jennifer Grey.
The actress may not have had as long a run on the show as she could have, but she did reveal a second connection. Maggie Wheeler, who played Janice (and who some think should have been Chandler’s endgame), has been Jennifer Grey’s best friend since high school, and there’s proof on Wheeler’s Instagram:
It’s truly a missed opportunity that we never got to see Janice and Mindy come face to face on Friends, but I’m glad Jennifer Grey prioritized her mental health by turning down a second appearance. It also seems like she’s been able to conquer some of that anxiety since then, as she not only competed on but won Dancing with the Stars Season 11.
Friends fans can watch both Mindy episodes, including Jennifer Grey’s Season 1 appearance, with an HBO Max subscription, with all 10 seasons available for streaming, and check out our 2023 TV schedule to see what other shows are coming soon.
