Drake and Josh actress Yvette Nicole Brown ‘really learned’ a lot from Nickelodeon child stars

Yvette Nicole Brown “really learned” a lot from child actors early on in her career when she starred on ‘Drake and Josh’ in the early 2000s.

Yvette Nicole Brown “really learned” a lot from child stars.

The 53-year-old actress was only just starting out when she was cast as Helen Dubois in the Nickelodeon sitcom ‘Drake and Josh’ alongside Drake Bell and Josh Peck – both of whom had appeared on ‘The Amanda Show’ before landing their own series – and “studied” her young co-stars on set.

She told People: “It was amazing to see Drake, Josh and Miranda [Cosgrove] be so amazing at such young ages. I was just starting out as an actor, so I was really learning and studying these babies and learning how they were moving on these sets.

“It was one of the first or second things I’d ever done.

“It was really exciting to be in that training ground and to be already working with professionals, even though they were really young.”

In the series, Yvette – who is also known for her role in ‘Community’ – played the manager of The Premier movie theatre and gave Josh a job early on in the first season.

She recently reunited with her former co-star on his ‘Good Guys’ podcast, and the pair “fell right back” into their alter-egos for a moment of comedy on the show.

She said: “Me and Josh fell right back into those characters [for the November reunion]. You would’ve thought it was 20 years ago, yesterday. It was really interesting to realize how those characters still live in our bodies and we can just become Helen and Josh like that.”

‘Drake and Josh’ ran on Nickelodeon from 2004 until 2007, and while Yvette only appeared in 15 of the 56 episodes, she admitted that Helen is the role that most people still approach her about today.

She said: “If I get stopped on the street, I get stopped for ‘Drake and Josh’ more than anything — even more than ‘Community’. People still love Helen. It was 15 episodes, 20 years ago, but they still love the old girl.”