Ask any actor who started out in stand-up and you’ll get the same answer: Comedy clubs keep you on your toes.
Regular screen roles and the dreamy disconnection of living in Hollywood can lead to creative inertia — which is fine if you’re happy with that sort of thing. But for people wanting to keep their fangs sharp, the occasional small club tour offers the perfect prey.
Cedric the Entertainer doesn’t need to hit the road as much as he does, with a half-dozen film and TV projects in the works and his reputation as a comic powerhouse already secured.
But that’s exactly how the actor-writer-producer, who turned 44 last month, likes it.
“I never want to walk away from (stand-up) completely, even when I have a movie scheduled,” he said over the phone from Los Angeles. “The immediate, one-on-one response from the audience helps with your timing and comedic points of view in a movie, whether it’s a straight comedy or more of a dramatic role.”
We spoke with Cedric — born Cedric Antonio Kyles — in advance of his Friday-Saturday sets at the Improv at Northfield Stapleton about his early years and the likely return of the wildly popular “The Original Kings of Comedy.”
Q: Were you interested in comedy when you were growing up in Missouri?
A: Yeah, it was early on — around 8th or 9th grade when “Fame” and those kind of shows were on — that I felt like I had that degree of talent. I used to tell my mother (a reading instructor) that I needed to go to a school like that. But she was one that definitely leaned more toward a formal, traditional education.
Q: And it wasn’t until later, when you were an insurance agent, that you actually got into stand-up, right?
A: That was probably around 1988 or ’89. I won a contest in Chicago and then a quarterfinal.
Q: Were you looking toward any comedic idols back then?
A: At that time the real key people were, of course, the greats like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and George Carlin. The late Robin Harris was one of my greatest influences, because he was a comedian that performed like a regular person, not a superstar. He was just as funny as those guys, but he let you see that you didn’t have to wear leather or something to get attention.
Q: “The Original Kings of Comedy” tour and film (which included Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Bernie Mac) was enormously successful, grossing almost $40 million in a couple years. What was the inspiration behind it?
A: That was the brainchild of the promoter at the time, who had promoted all of us individually and talked to us about doing a whole mega-show. We tried it in a couple of locations and it went crazy, so we put together the group.
Q: It’s remarkable how many other “mega-tours” came after that.
A: It was one of those things that really kind of changed the landscape of comedy, with the Latin Kings of Comedy, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and all the other ones. We might get back to the Original Kings in the fall. We’ll see.
Q: A recent review called you a “teddy bear with an R-rated vocabulary.” What’s your current stand-up act like?
A: I’m having fun developing and writing new material, mixing the show up with some things you may have heard and current situations. I just like vibing with the crowd because it’s just you, them and a microphone.
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
