Nobody Puts Abigail Breslin and Her New Tattoo in a Corner

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” It’s the oft-repeated line from that epic dancing scene at the end of the iconic 1980s film Dirty Dancing, when Johnny Castle, played by Patrick Swayze, collects Baby Houseman for the final dance, and actress Abigail Breslin now has the famous line permanently emblazoned on her body. Abigail uploaded a photo of her new Dirty Dancing-inspired tattoo to Instagram last week, and captioned the snap, “I carried a watermelon and all I got was this tattoo. #DirtyDancINKED (tattoo by @ih8videogames).”

Done by Jeff Oscar, artist at Whatever Tattoo on St. Marks Place in NYC, Abigail Breslin’s new tattoo was inspired by much more than her undying love for the classic romantic drama; the 20-year-old is actually playing “Baby,” or Frances Houseman, in the upcoming remake of Dirty Dancing, a starring role played by Jennifer Grey in the original. That’s right, there’s going to be another Dirty Dancing, a three-hour musical version of the quintessential film that a Times reviewer once called “a metaphor for America in the summer of 1963 – orderly, prosperous, bursting with good intentions […]”

According to a description of the character, “Baby” is “an innocent young woman in the early 1960s who vacations with her affluent parents and siblings in the Catskill Mountains and falls for the resort’s working-class dance instructor,” played by Patrick Swayze in the original film. Starring alongside Breslin in the remake will be Colt Prattes as Johnny Castle, and the actor has some pretty big shoes to fill, if you ask us. As does Breslin, because Dirty Dancing truly is an iconic film with themes, images and lines that have worked their way into popular culture and still ring true today.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner” in particular, has become so well-known, that the quote has been used in song lyrics, as the title of a Fall Out Boy song, and as the title of an episode of the TV series Veronica Mars. It was also quoted in the TV series Supernatural and Family Guy, and the movie as a whole was referenced in the first episode of the TV series New Girl,and in an episode of How I Met Your Mother, when Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) attempts to pass off the Dirty Dancing story as his own.

While past reincarnations of the original Dirty Dancing film fell flat with fans, we’re hoping Breslin hits it out of the park with her interpretation of our favorite innocent and relatable young woman, especially since she now has a line from the film permanently tattooed on her body!