Jennifer Grey breaks her silence on why she has declined from reprising Friends’ role

Jennifer Grey explains why her guest role on hit series Friends had to be recast.

In a new interview with MediaVillage, the Dirty Dancing star shared that her “anxiety level was so severe” during the '90s that led her to decline the opportunity to reprise her role as Mindy, Rachel Green’s former best friend, on sitcom.

Grey revealed that she was ecstatic to guest star on the series opposite Jennifer Aniston but it took a toll on her mental health.

“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,” said the 63-year-old.

The actress continued, “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,” stated Grey.

However, the actress mentioned that her brief stint was so successful on Friends, she was later called in to reprise her role for season 2 finale.

“When they asked me to come back, I said I couldn't,” recalled Grey.

The actress commented, “They got someone else (Jana Marie Hupp) to play the role.”

Not only that, Grey disclosed that she even rejected Saturday Night Live because of her “stress and anxiety”.

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

In the end, Grey added that the “hard things, the really painful, difficult things, are usually the things that are the most instructive and helpful”.