One thing that’s pretty apparent with the acting profession is that every time you head into work, there’s a solid chance you’ll encounter someone who’s had a much longer stint in the profession than you and might be willing to offer some good advice. It turns out that this is exactly what happened for The Middle vet Eden Sher when she filmed an episode of the revived NBC comedy, Night Court, and got some tips from OG star, John Larroquette.
What Did The Middle’s Eden Sher Say About Getting Advice From Night Court’s John Larroquette?
Making a guest appearance on a comedy as popular as Night Court (which stars Melissa Rauch, John Larroquette, Nyambi Nyambi, Lacretta, and Wendy Malik) would offer a unique opportunity for any actor to bring their talents to a wider audience. And though the same was certainly true for Eden Sher, the actress best known for her long run as the ever-hopeful Sue Heck (who nearly had her own spinoff) on ABC’s family comedy, The Middle, is already no slouch in the “filming a sitcom” department.
That, however, doesn’t mean that she didn’t get good advice from TV legend Larroquette when she worked with him on the third season of Night Court (which is still rolling along on the 2025 TV schedule). It turns out that while she played Sue for a whopping nine seasons, there was a big difference in the way she needed to approach her time on the NBC workplace comedy. As she told Bleeding Cool:
There were opportunities to meet and talk to people, and I learned the most from John in that one week because we talked a lot about the art of pausing and how you find jokes within jokes when you must pause for laughter because it's so profoundly unnatural.
So, what did she learn from him? As you might know, single-cam shows have no audience, while multi-cam sitcoms do film in front of a live audience. Sher isn’t quite as practiced in the “art of pausing” to “find jokes within jokes” because of those necessary breaks the actors must take in their dialogue to allow those in the audience to laugh. She added:
On single cam, you only meet and interact with the people you have scenes with, but on a multi-cam, you're rehearsing the whole show every day until you shoot. Every single person on is present at least, on set is present the whole time. There is some opportunity, like I definitely got the closest with John, because all my scenes were with him.
I bet a lot of people, even committed sitcom fans, didn’t know that working on a single-camera comedy (which is what The Middle was) meant only interacting with the people you have scenes with, while filming a multi-cam show (Night Court) allows one the chance to work with literally everyone who will be in that episode every day.
As the star noted, this meant that the five-time Emmy winner (who won four consecutive trophies for the original legal comedy) was always on set when she was, and she learned the most from him because all of her scenes included the proud Star Trek III: The Search for Spock actor. Luckily, that allowed her to get some pointers from a master of the art of pausing.
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