Fans of Dirty Dancing are sure to remember how palpable the onscreen chemistry between Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze was.
Now, Grey is sharing even more details about filming the 1987 classic, including how she initially got on with the late Swayze.
Prior to the pair starring in Dirty Dancing together, the duo actually appeared alongside each other in the 1984 film, Red Dawn. And it was during that experience that Grey didn’t have the most ideal experience working with Swayze.
“Patrick was playing pranks on me and everybody,” Grey explained on The View. “It was just, like, macho, and I just couldn’t take it. I was just like, ‘Please, this guy, that’s enough with him’.”
So, when she heard that Swayze was about to be signed on as her love interest in Dirty Dancing years later, she was opposed to having to work with him again.
During their screen test, Grey opened up about how Swayze felt the tension between them and pulled her aside to clear the air.
“He pulled me down the hall and said to me, ‘I love you, I love you, and I’m so sorry. And I know you don’t want me to do the movie,’ ” the actress recalled.
“And he got the tears in his eyes. And I got the tears in my eyes—not for the same reason. I was like, ‘Oh, this guy’s working me’,” Grey said, adding, “And he goes, ‘We could kill it—we could kill it if we did this’.”
While she remained sceptical, her opinion on Swayze began to change when she realised how much chemistry they had when reading lines for the movie. And clearly, she wasn’t wrong.
“We go in there and he takes me in his arms and I was like, ‘Oh, boy. I’m done’,” she admitted, adding, “There was no competition. He was, like, the easy chair I’d been dreaming of my whole life”.
In Dirty Dancing, fans will remember that Grey starred as Frances “Baby” Houseman, a teenager who meets dance instructor Johnny Castle (played by Swayze) at a resort in the summer of 1963.
With a sequel of the dance film on the way, Grey confirmed that she’ll be returning to her iconic role, explaining that the film won’t try to recapture the chemistry that she had with Swazye, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2009.
“All I can say is there is no replacing anyone who’s passed—you never try to repeat anything that’s magic like that,” she told People. “You just go for something different.”
“It was about innocence and the way that innocence is lost and how people explode into a different iteration of themselves.”
Here’s hoping “Come here, lover boy” makes another appearance.
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