The tables were turned at the end of the “Friends” second season. Mindy and Barry were getting married, and Rachel was the maid of honor. But Jennifer Grey did not reprise her role as Mindy. Instead, the role was recast with Jana Marie Hupp. For years, fans were in the dark about the reason for the casting switch. But in an April 2023 interview with Media Village, Grey explained that her crippling anxiety forced her to decline a return to the megahit show. “I was a fan of the show, and I got the call to do it,” Grey explained. “Then when I did it, I had such bad anxiety because they kept changing the script. … 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,” Grey added. “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. … When they asked me to come back, I said I couldn’t. They got someone else to play the role.”
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Hupp took over the role of Mindy in the season 2 episode, “The One With Barry And Mindy’s Wedding.” It wasn’t the first time a “Friends” role was recast — Ross’s ex-wife Carol was originally played by Anita Barone before Jane Sibbett took over the role — but it was especially noticeable due to Grey’s fame as a movie star.
