ABC remakes 'Dirty Dancing' new songs, expanded plot

Ask the stars of ABC's “Dirty Dancing” remake how they liked the experience, and they apparently had the time of their lives.

In its 30th-anniversary year, the highly musical Catskills-resort love story of Johnny Castle and nobody-puts-her-in-a-corner Baby Houseman gets a fresh workout in a three-hour version Wednesday, May 24. Abigail Breslin and dancer-actor Colt Prattes succeed Jennifer Grey and the late Patrick Swayze, with Debra Messing and Bruce Greenwood as Baby's parents, Nicole Scherzinger as Johnny's initial dance partner Penny, and Tony Roberts as resort owner Max Kellerman. Katey Sagal, Billy Dee Williams and Sarah Hyland also appear.

Both Breslin and Prattes came to the project as big fans. “I've always loved the original,” Breslin confirms. “I'd never danced before, so it was a little nerve-racking — but I thought it would be so much fun because it's one of my mom's favorite movies, as well as one of mine. I was frustrated for a while, but once you get the basics down, that's when things start getting easier.”

Breslin found consolation in being paired with a dance pro, since Prattes was in the Las Vegas company of “Rock of Ages” and appeared with music's Pink on concert stages and in her “Try” video. “I would watch ('Dirty Dancing') roughly every weekend,” Prattes maintains. “I visited my dad on weekends, and my stepmom loved it. It was always on some channel like USA or TNT, and she would always watch it and I'd sit there with her, before I even had any interest in dancing.”

The Swayze factor had its own effect, Prattes reports. “My dad was a huge fan of 'Point Break' and 'Road House,' so I grew up respecting Patrick Swayze to the utmost. He was just everything in my mind, so talented and charismatic. Then, my stepmom told me he had danced his whole life, and it just turned it into something else for me. This was a man who was comfortable being a dancer and made no apologies for that.”

The ABC retelling isn't the first time “Dirty Dancing” has been done for television; a 1988-89 CBS series spinoff starred Patrick Cassidy and Melora Hardin. The newest version also adds plot, telling what became of Johnny and Baby after the summer they met, plus other songs alongside such “Dirty Dancing” standards as “(I've Had) The Time of My Life” and “Hungry Eyes.”

Since the filming, Breslin — who met predecessor Grey afterward and says she was “just so sweet and really supportive” — has found Prattes to be “one of my best friends. He's just a lot calmer than me, and he helped me stay more relaxed because he knew what he was doing. And he was nervous about the acting, since this was his first big role, so we were both able to help each other.”

Still, Breslin owns up to a sentence she used on Prattes more than once: “You'd better not drop me.”