In advance of the 35th anniversary of “Dirty Dancing,” Lisa Niemi spoke about her late spouse.
Lisa Niemi, Patrick Swayze’s wife, reportedly stated that if the late actor were still alive, he would not have decided to take part in the impending Dirty Dancing sequel.
Swayze played the adored Johnny Castle in the legendary movie, which debuted in August 1987. After a very short struggle with pancreatic cancer, the late actor went away in 2009.
The sequel to the movie, which is set to hit theatres in 2024, was initially teased in 2020. In honour of the nearing 35th anniversary of Dirty Dancing, Niemi stated during the 66-year-interview old’s with Entertainment Tonight earlier this week that her husband would have rejected the idea.
She assured ET’s Kevin Frazier that “he would not do it again.” “It was simply ideal how they left it. The script for that movie went through multiple revisions, but Patrick had high standards and wasn’t going to do it for the money.”
She said, ” “It was like lightning in a bottle, Dirty Dancing. You can never truly reproduce something, in my opinion.”
Niemi still has great expectations for the project even if she believes it will never measure up to her beloved husband’s legendary performance.
I believe that you should always start over, but if they’re going to do it, she added, “I hope it’s the greatest and has its own character, personality, and source of inspiration.”
Niemi also reflected on the love her late husband continued to receive from fans even after his passing, years after Dirty Dancing entered theatres.
It’s very amazing, she said. “Patrick used to say, “I’m on my second generation of fans,” when he was still alive. Young women who hadn’t even been born when the movie came out would approach him.”
What more could an artist want for, she argued, than “for their work to live on like that and make such an influence in such a wonderful way”?
Variety reports that the Dirty Dancing sequel’s producers are in talks with Swayze’s estate about including some aspect of his persona in the movie. Jennifer Grey, who co-starred with the late actor in the film, will return to the project as Frances “Baby” Houseman.
