Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze inDirty Dancing(1987).Photo:Vestron/Kobal/Shutterstock
Vestron/Kobal/Shutterstock
Jennifer Greyis revealing someDirty Dancingsecrets!
“There was no room for a panic attack,” said Grey, 63, of filming the famous moment in the 1987 romance with Swayze, whodied in 2009at age 57 from pancreatic cancer.
The actress recalled to E! News that she gave a “hard no” to running through the move ahead of time, as she was “really scared and protective” of her body then, but had “no choice” when the time came to actually film the scene.
“If you’ve ever tried it, you’d understand what it means to do it,” Grey said. “It was one of those game-day things.”
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Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey inDirty Dancing(1987).Snap/Shutterstock
“Patrick is the only one who really anyone should try it with, because he was just such a good ballet dancer,” she told E! News. “He was so used to lifting women and so strong. By the end of the movie, I trusted him so much.”
In February 2023, Grey told PEOPLE that she alwayscries when watchingDirty Dancingnow, admitting, “It gets me every time.”
“It feels like I’m living it when I’m watching it. And then I’m realizing that Patrick is gone,” she said.
Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze at the premiere ofDirty Dancingin New York City on Aug. 17, 1987.Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
As for the lift scene, which has become one of the most recognizable moments in the movie, choreographerKenny Ortegatold PEOPLE back in 2017 that Grey “worked very hard, and it showed.”
“Because she was an untrained dancer,the lifts were actually big momentsfor her personally," he said. “She was aspiring to do them as an individual, not just as a character. She brought that to the role, and her reactions were so genuine and honest.”
But would the film have worked the same with anyone other than Swayze and Grey? Ortega, now 73, doesn’t think so, he told PEOPLE.
“It would have been a different film,” he said at the time. “The chemistry would have been different. It wouldn’t have been what it was. I can’t imagine it with anyone but the two of them. It was magical.”
source: people.com
