A Cast of a Thousand Jamies

In person, Jamie Kennedy displays the spiky haircut and informed goofiness of a teen you might confront across the counter at a video store.

But forget what he’s like for real, or that this rising actor-comic is actually 31 years old. On “JKX: The Jamie Kennedy Experiment,” his new sketch-reality show on the WB (which is part-owned by Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times), he disappears inside one of countless alter egos who meet, and beguile, an unsuspecting public. (Two new half-hour episodes air Sunday at 8 p.m.)

“I love playing characters, and the real test of being an actor is to see if people believe them,” says Kennedy, whose films includes “Three Kings” and “Scream.” “What better way to test this stuff than to run it on real people?”

Maybe he’s an elderly, hopelessly addled TV judge who can’t keep straight the facts of the case. Or a rich-boy, Malibu-born rapper. Or a roguish Hollywood tour guide who takes sightseers inside Bob Saget’s house--after he busts a window to gain access.

When each situation can’t get any loonier, Kennedy comes clean. But instead of “Smile, you’re on ‘Candid Camera,’” he turns to his befuddled “mark,” breaks character and cackles, “You’ve been X-ed!”

A recent segment found Kennedy transformed into a dweebish driving instructor who subjects his student to lunatic banter, delusional advice (“hands on the wheel at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock--but after 9 o’clock, at 11 o’clock and 3 o’clock”), and a side trip to the home of his angry ex-wife, who storms the car with a baseball bat.

If the driving-instructor gambit sounds familiar, you may have seen a similar prank last summer on NBC’s “Candid Camera” from hell, “Spy TV.” On that show, the point was to scare the daylights out of a guy named Shawn by trapping him in a car with a stunt driver as his instructor, then, when he was properly traumatized, springing “gotcha!” on him.

By contrast, on “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment,” the teenage student wasn’t a victim, but virtually a co-star. Radiating dread mixed with amusement, she rivaled Kennedy’s performance--and she didn’t even know she was performing.

“She was just as much a part of it as me,” Kennedy declares. “We’re in the car and at one point I say, ‘Don’t worry, calm down, everything’s gonna be fine,’ and she says, ‘OK.’ She commits to this bizarre world!

“Then the driving instructor’s brother gets in the car and he’s a transvestite. So she gives him fashion tips.”

The inspiration for what its star calls “the funnest job I’ve ever had” draws from the art of Eddie Murphy and Peter Sellers, two of Kennedy’s idols. It also takes a cue from documentary films, which he can’t get enough of. (Two far-flung favorites: “Triumph of the Will” and “Crumb.”)

For Kennedy, experiment means introducing an odd element (him) into real life to see what happens. Or, put another way: steering his marks into an alternate universe and seeing what role they claim when they get there. While documenting the whole thing.

“We are challenging people’s belief systems, and I think that’s pretty cool,” he says. “They are thinking, ‘This is weird, but I’m gonna go with it and be accepting.’ And then, after we reveal what’s going on, they can go, ‘Whew!’ Everything they believed before is right, after all. They realize nothing would have been weird if we weren’t involved.”

Of course, their willingness to buy into the act depends on Kennedy not blowing his cover.

“We haven’t been busted yet,” he says proudly. “I have a malleable face, and the makeup people are great. Except I have a big nose, so the makeup man told me I could never play an Asian.”

That still leaves a lot of people he can play. But what becomes of his covert comedy quest as he and the show grow increasingly familiar?

Not a problem, says the joker, who claims his only worry is a backlash from the catchphrase “You’ve been X-ed.”

“Like, I could see girlfriends breaking up with me saying, ‘You’ve been X-ed!’ Then I go to a Lakers game and Shaq says, ‘You’re X-ed!’ I mean, it’s endless what could happen.”

He chortles with delight. “The biggest question I used to get was, ‘Why did you get killed in “Scream 2”?’ Now it’s ‘What are you gonna do when people recognize you?’

“First of all,” he explains, “we should be so lucky to be that successful. No. 2: Isn’t that a true test, to see if we can keep pulling it off? I would think we would just have to go deeper and deeper, and just see how far we can take it.”