Jennifer Grey is set to reprise her role as Baby in an upcoming sequel to “Dirty Dancing”.
While details of the followup to the 1987 classic remain under wraps, she confirmed there will be no attempt to recast the role played in the original by Patrick Swayze, who died in 2009 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
“All I can say is there is no replacing anyone who’s passed — you never try to repeat anything that’s magic like that,” the actress, 60, tells People. “You just go for something different.”
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More than 30 years after its debut, “Dirty Dancing” remains a pop-culture touchstone, and she shared her thoughts on why the film remains so popular.
According to Grey, the movie’s “appeal was that it was very genuine and simple. It was about innocence and the way that innocence is lost and how people explode into a different iteration of themselves.”
Back in August, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer confirmed that a sequel was in the works, joking that it was “one of the worst kept secrets in Hollywood.”
“Dirty Dancing 2”, he added, “will be exactly the kind of romantic, nostalgic movie that the franchise’s fans have been waiting for and that have made it the biggest-selling library title in the Company’s history.”
The project will mark the first bona fide sequel to “Dirty Dancing”, following a short-lived TV series, the 2004 not-a-sequel “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights”, a Broadway musical and a roundly panned 2017 made-for-TV remake featuring Abigail Breslin in Grey’s role.
