Exotic locations. The chance to learn from experts how to sail. Working with an exciting director. Jennifer Grey remembers all the reasons she took the role of Kate in the yacht-racing epic "Wind."
But it wasn't so easy to remember those reasons as she tried to live through the experience."They're not going to be happy to hear me say this, but it was pure hell," the actress said. "It was so crazy. It was nothing like a normal film. It was like ninja filmmaking.
"There was nothing to hold onto, no script, nothing. I was desperately trying to grab onto something just to get through it."
Still, Grey, best known for her role as Baby in the surprise 1987 hit "Dirty Dancing" and for being Joel Grey's daughter, said she's glad she did it.
"It's not like I went out searching for a life-changing, wildly challenging, physically and emotionally draining experience. I'm not a masochist. I don't go out looking for a beating.
"But I don't believe you pick your jobs. They pick you. You can try for anything you like, but the ones that belong to you come to you."
Grey, 32, plays the former lover and sailing partner of a rising young star on the racing scene (Matthew Modine) selected to captain the U.S. entry in the America's Cup.
Their rekindled relationship is set against a story line loosely based on the exploits of racer Dennis Conner, the first American in 132 years to lose the America's Cup to a foreign competitor. He traveled to Australia four years later and retrieved the cup.
The movie was plagued by bad weather, an accident in which two stuntmen were seriously injured and constant rewriting and reedit-ing by director Carroll Ballard.
As recently as two weeks ago, the film was being edited to emphasize more of the couple's relationship and less yacht racing, Grey said.
"Wind" was scheduled for an earlier release, and the delay led to some speculation that the film was in trouble. But Grey said the speculation was wrong.
"People who think that are stupid, and you can quote me on that," she said. "You know how long it takes to edit a sailing movie? So it was a couple of months late. A lot of movies are late."
Like Conner, Modine's character is a renegade who wants to win his own way. And part of his way is to pick Grey's character as part of his crew.
Grey's character, although competent, is at first denied her rightful place aboard the racing yacht for no better reason than her gender.
"Yacht racing is the biggest boys club in the world, and women not only don't get to race, they don't even get to sit in one of those boats," Grey said.
"That definitely was one of the attractions of this job before it started - the opportunity to sail in a boat that women normally don't get close to.
"It certainly wasn't the desire to sail," she added with a laugh. "I've never wanted to sail. Do I look like the kind of girl who sails? I didn't even know what the America's Cup was before I did the movie.
"All I knew from watching nature shows on television was that I was going to go out on the ocean, fall off the boat and be eaten by sharks. I was convinced I'd be eaten by sharks."
Gray talks in short bursts and has no trouble with a punch line. It's not surprising that she has a way with words.
Her grandfather was noted Borscht Belt comedian Mickey Katz, her father is an Academy Award winner ("Cabaret") and her mother is actress Jo Wilder. She grew up in the theater, spending countless nights standing in the wings as her parents performed on stage.
She got her first break in a Dr. Pepper commercial, performed in a few theater productions and made her film debut in "Reckless." She had small roles in "The Cotton Club," "Red Dawn" and "American Flyers," but her first meaty role came in 1986, when she played Matthew Broderick's obnoxious sister in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."
That won her the role in "Dirty Dancing," which had the dual effects of catapulting her to the forefront of hot young actresses and stifling her fledgling career.
She was so identified with the role, she said, that she had trouble finding producers who could think of her as anything but the sweet, innocent Baby.
"I guess I did such a great job in that movie that everybody assumed that's who I was," she said. "But now I'm finally coming of age at 32. I suppose you could call me a late bloomer."