Yvette Nicole Brown Says Child Actors on “Drake & Josh” Helped Her Hone Her Craft: I Was 'Studying These Babies' (Exclusive)

Yvette Nicole Brown says her earliest acting teachers were actually her child costars on Drake & Josh. 

“It was amazing to see Drake [Bell], Josh [Peck] and Miranda [Cosgrove] be so amazing at such young ages,” the newlywed tells PEOPLE during a recent interview. "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."

Brown, 53, played Helen Dubois, the manager of Premiere Theater and Josh’s (Josh Peck) boss on the Nickelodeon sitcom about stepbrothers. Her character recurred from 2004 to 2007 in seasons 2 to 4.

“It was one of the first or second things I’d ever done,” she says. “It was really exciting to be in that training ground and to be already working with professionals, even though they were really young."

Adds Brown, "We had a really good time."

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Brown and Peck recently had a mini Drake & Josh reunion on his podcast, Good Guys.

“I did not know this was going to happen,” Brown says. “He was like, ‘We’d like to act out some scenes here on the podcast, and I just happened to have this scene from Drake & Josh.’ He pulled out a scene from [season 3 episode] 'Helen’s Surgery' — when I get the eye surgery.”

On the podcast episode, released Nov. 4, the former costars returned to their roles.

“I sound the same,” Peck says in the clip posted to Instagram.

“You do,” Brown agrees. 

In the series, Helen hated Josh. But in real life, Brown says she “adored” Peck.

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

Later on in the podcast episode, Brown also revealed that Drake & Josh is still one of her most recognized roles. 

“If I get stopped on the street, I get stopped for Drake & Josh more than anything — even more than Community," Brown said. “People still love Helen. It was 15 episodes, 20 years ago, but they still love the old girl."

Read the original article on People