Jennifer Grey Recalls Her 'Anxious' Time on 'Friends'

Jennifer Grey is opening up about her time on "Friends," saying that anxiety prevented her from making a return appearance.

The "Dirty Dancing" star starred in one episode of the hit 1990s sitcom as Mindy, who along with Rachel Greene (Jennifer Aniston) confronts orthodontist Barry about his cheating ways. The character appeared again in Season 2 but this time it was Jana Marie Hupp who played the role and not Grey, who turned the part down.

"I was a fan of the show, and I got the call to do it," Grey told Media Village. "Then when I did it, I had such bad anxiety because they kept changing the script."

She said the changes made it difficult to play a guest role on the sitcom.

"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 said. "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."

Grey admitted that although she may have not realized it at the time, she had a lot of "performance anxiety," which was present in parts of her career and impacted her decision not to be a part of "Saturday Night Live."

"I always just [felt] like I wished I had the ability to do things," she admitted. "Like when they asked me to do 'Saturday Night Live,' I just couldn't. I said no. I was just too scared."

Grey added that it made her sad that she declined to reprise her role on "Friends."

"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," she said.

Looking back however, Grey said she is able to draw some positives from the experience, adding that "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."