Courteney Cox says her nervousness helped her land ‘Dancing in the Dark’ video role

Courteney Cox and Bruce Springsteen dance in the video for Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.”

Interviewed today on “The Howard Stern Show” on SiriusXM satellite radio, Courteney Cox said her nervousness helped her land the role of the fan who is picked out of the crowd to dance with Bruce Springsteen in his 1984 video for “Dancing in the Dark.” (watch video below)

“I love that song,” she said, after Stern brought it up. “I get a little embarrassed, because I do feel, like, when I watch the video, when I see it … I mean, God … did you see my dance? It was pathetic. I’m not a bad dancer, but that was horrible. I was so nervous.”

She said when she went to audition and saw other actresses warming up — stretching like dancers — she thought she was in the wrong place.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know what they’re doing, but I can’t even bend my leg,’ ” she said, adding that she went into the office of the video’s director, Brian De Palma, and he asked her to dance to the song’s music. “And I thought, ‘Right now? Here, in front of you? Just the two of us?’ And it was so embarrassing.”

But, she added, “I think that’s why I got it. Because I was, literally, like, (shakily) ‘Okay.’ And I think that’s what they wanted: A fan that just couldn’t believe it.”

The “Dancing in the Dark” video marked the first time Springsteen appeared in a video for one of his own songs, and helped it become one of Springsteen’s biggest hits.

Cox was 20 years old and already a professional actress in ’84. Though she didn’t join the original cast of “Friends” until 10 years after “Dancing in the Dark,” she worked steadily as an actress over that decade and had a prominent role in the hit sitcom “Family Ties.”