This Monday, August 1, TF1 Series Movies devotes a documentary to Patrick Swayze. If he was successful thanks to dirty dancing, the interpreter of Johnny Castle could have never given the reply to Jennifer Grey. And for good reason. The actor was not at the top of the cast.
A character who has become cult. With his frenzied dance steps and his airs of bad boy, Patrick Swayze burst the screen in the film dirty dancing (1987). A role that allowed him to push the doors of a great career as related in the documentary dedicated to him this Monday, August 1 on TF1 Series Movies. However, the actor who died in September 2009 almost never embody Johnny Castle on the big screen, as revealed by our colleagues from vogue. In effect. Before his name appeared in the casting, the production first thought of Val Kilmer. Contacted, the actor of Top Gun declined the proposal for a very specific reason. Very selective in his cinematographic projects, the latter would have refused the role for fear of being placed in the category of “handsome actors”.
From then on, luck smiled for Jennifer Grey’s screen partner. Shortly after, Patrick Swayze landed this role thanks to his eyesas screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein revealed in the Netflix miniseries titled Movies That Made Us. Among all the photos of the actors, that of Lisa Niemi’s husband literally caught the screenwriter’s eye. “So we went through photo after photo and I said: ‘Ah! These are the eyes that I want’“, she said with some enthusiasm. In addition to worshiping the replica “We don’t leave babies in a corner”the actor signed one of the film’s greatest musical hits. With its title She’s like the windPatrick Swayze topped the chart of popular song in the United States, carried out by the billboard magazine. A casting change that turned out to be a winner for the production and for Patrick Swayze.
Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey: why they hated each other?
Thirty-five years after the release of dirty dancingPatrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray are among of the most legendary couples in cinema. If their chemistry and their complicity seemed obvious on the screen, in reality, the interpreters of Johnny Castle and “Baby” hated each other. From the shoot, strong tensions arose between them. “He felt like she was weak”told the producer of Dirty Dancing Linda Gottlieb to the Huffington Post. But if Jennifer Gray could be different with each take, Patrick Swayze was a pro. He delivered the same game over and over again. “She cried easily, she was emotional and he kind of laughed at her a little bitshe reported in the columns of cheat sheet. He was a macho“
As Patrick Swayze pointed the emotionality of his partner in his autobiography The Time of My Life, Jennifer Gray looked back on their tumultuous relationship in the columns of The Hollywood Reporter. “His fearlessness and my fear of everything together, it was like a marriage where you have two opposites. He could have done anything and I was afraid to do anything”, she summarized. If opposites attract, the two personalities of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray have indeed confirmed this adage.
Photo credits: ALPHA AGENCY / BESTIMAGE
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Patrick Swayze: why he almost never played in Dirty Dancing – Gala