New Orleans native John Larroquette has been acting in film and television since the 1970s. In the “Night Court” reboot, Larroquette reprises his role as Dan Fielding from the original, a performance which netted him four Primetime Emmy awards. In the pilot episode of the revival, Dan, no longer a district attorney, is working as a process server before being convinced to return to court as a public defender by Abby Stone. Larroquette was initially apprehensive about reprising his role but was ultimately intrigued by the idea of exploring how his character had grown. “How often does an actor get a chance to revisit some character that he played three and a half decades ago?” he said during a TV Line interview.
Larroquette got his start as the narrator of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” in 1974. He had small roles in several TV shows in the late 1970s, including “Kojak,” “Doctor’s Hospital,” and “Black Sheep Squadron.” His first major film role came in 1981 when he played Captain Stillman in the Bill Murray war comedy “Stripes.” In the 1980s, in addition to his role on “Night Court,” he played the Klingon officer Maltz in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” and he was also in “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” appearing in the “Time Out” segment.
After “Night Court,” Larroquette got his own sitcom about a night shift on NBC: “The John Larroquette Show,” in which he played recovering alcoholic John Hemingway. Following the show’s cancellation after four seasons, he continued to appear regularly on television, popping up in shows like “The West Wing,” “The Practice,” “Arrested Development,” and “House.” Prior to reprising the role of Dan Fielding, Larroquette appeared as Gavin Firth in “The Good Fight.”
