Nyambi Nyambi was a childhood fan of Night Court before joining season 2 of the reboot

Almost everyone has a TV show they used to dream of joining as a starry-eyed young fan. But for The Good Fight actor Nyambi Nyambi, that dream actually came true when he got a call asking if he wanted to join season two of NBC’s Night Court, a reboot of the original 1984 legal comedy about the night shift of a Manhattan criminal court. The original series ran for nine seasons.

“I was like, ‘Night Court! Yo, I grew up watching that show and loving that show.’ It ended up being the best timing and a dream come true,” Nyambi said in an interview with The A.V. Club. On the show, Nyambi plays Wyatt Shaw, a court clerk that, in his words, is “still wallowing in [his] divorce, and taking care of two kids, and being a law student, and taking on every single job in New York.” But even though he’s clearly an exceptionally busy guy, Wyatt—and by extension Nyambi—are still finding ways to “be a grounding force” on the show. “Olivia, the character played by India de Beaufort, says that I’m ‘the fun one.’ So I bring the fun,” Nyambi shared.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the actor isn’t learning from his co-stars on set, especially from John Larroquette, who stars in both the new series and the original. “Before I joined the cast, I watched every single episode of the original Night Court again… [Larroquette] was and is a genius at what he does,” Nyambi said. “What I learned from him was permission. To give myself permission to be a fool… He’s constantly doing something silly, stupid, or funny with a word or a letter or a sound, and I was like, ‘Thank you. Permission. I can do that.’” “He has been nothing but kind, open, generous, and hilarious,” Nyambi continued. “It’s just made my time on the show that much more fun.”

The Night Court reboot is currently streaming on Peacock.