Ready for his close-up

It’s the first day of the Chinese New Year and dancers dressed as Cantonese lions wind their way through the lobby of the Universal City Hilton to portend good luck for the coming year. But Cedric the Entertainer, who has decamped to a couch on the mezzanine en route home from work to talk about his career, already knows good fortune lies ahead.

His new Bud Light commercial is set to air during today’s Super Bowl (though he refuses to share specifics about the ad, he willingly shares his prediction: “I think the Patriots are going to win.”), his new movie, MGM’s “Barbershop 2: Back in Business” (featuring a much-expanded role), drops on Friday. And he’s in the enviable position of juggling Jim Carrey and John Travolta film projects, both in production now.

“If I had to go to court, it could end up being very Michael Jackson-esque,” Cedric said with a devilish grin. “I could be the man by May. But right now, there’s a lot of love ... I’m only starting to see that kind of notoriety.”

He just got the role in “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which stars Carrey and Meryl Streep, when two smaller roles were combined to make a Cedric-sized part. “I’m playing a constable who’s kind of a cross between [Inspector] Clouseau and Shaft. I’m bad, but I don’t know I’m bad, I’m cool, but I don’t know much -- if you can imagine that.”

That films concurrently with “Be Cool,” the long-awaited sequel to “Get Shorty” that features Travolta, Uma Thurman and Danny DeVito. “I play a record executive cat who’s kind of a cross between P. Diddy and Suge Knight,” Cedric says, looking every inch the part in a Phat Farm sweatshirt, a snow-globe-sized Ritmo watch (a gift from boxing buddy Denzel Washington) and a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes.

Cedric the Entertainer, 39, finds himself in this situation because people don’t just like his comedy, they seem to genuinely like him. His clean, observational material covers all the bases from music and dance -- singing a reggae tune about a peanut butter sandwich or break-dance fighting -- to race (riffing on African American men adopting ridiculous nicknames “like Delicious”). And his easygoing stage presence helps the audience laugh and relax all at once -- like a favorite uncle at the family reunion.

Which makes his first lead role in “Johnson Family Vacation,” for Fox Searchlight Pictures, a natural transition. A kind of African American version of a Chevy Chase Griswold family road trip, he’s the patriarch of a family that includes Vanessa Williams, Solange Knowles, Bow Wow and Steve Harvey. “I’m pretty excited because it’s my first starring role and my first producing role. I was able to see the whole process from start to finish.”

He’s also involved in a movie remake of “The Honeymooners,” and he and longtime manager/producing partner Eric Rhone recently signed a three-year deal with MGM. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Cedric is trying to carve out time to get back on the road and “knock the cobwebs off” with a “Kings of Comedy”-style stand-up tour.

“I think I’ve got some free time on Wednesdays between 1 a.m. and 1:15 a.m.,” he said, breaking into a wide grin. “I will sneak some playtime in -- play Sony PlayStation, golf a little. But I really enjoy working, and I don’t have that much free time right now.”

Rhone can attest to that. “This is definitely the busiest year of Cedric’s career -- and mine -- so far,” he says. He should know -- Cedric’s former fraternity brother and college classmate (both attended Southeast Missouri State University and pledged Kappa Alpha Psi at the same time) has been a collaborator and business partner since shortly after graduation.

A stand-up springboard

While in college, the then-Cedric Kyles sang in groups, was part of a band and got involved in the college choir and chamber choir and “I was doing Gregorian chants and stuff.” He graduated with a degree in mass communications in 1987.

After a brief foray selling fax machines (“It was 1987, man, and nobody even knew what fax machines were. It was rough.”), he took a job as an insurance claims adjuster.

He started doing stand-up at about the same time, entering and winning local comedy competitions and getting paid to perform. “That’s where the name came about,” he explained. “People started hiring me for shows and wanted to pay me $400 for 30 minutes. I had five, maybe seven, minutes of material tops, so I’d mix in some songs, some vocal stuff and anecdotes. I’d ask them to call me an entertainer instead of a comedian since I was going to do more than just tell jokes. So one time a guy got up and introduced me as ‘Cedric the Entertainer’ and it sort of stuck.”

In addition to working on his act, he honed his look. “Growing up in St. Louis there was always this group of guys who were real snazzy dressers, and that just stuck with me,” he explains. “Sometimes I’d try the suit with the sneakers or a baseball cap. Finally I decided I’d just be that guy who wears the fedora -- you know, the ‘Godfather’ hat.”

Now his stylish headgear and tailored threads serve as his sartorial signature and he’s amassed roughly 200 hats. (His fave: the Borsalino.) “I’ve got so many my wife wants me to get rid of some of them,” he said. “Give them to charity or something.”

Cedric counts among his comic influences Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams. “But the guy who inspired me the most was the late Robin Harris,” Cedric said of the actor whose stand-up routine became the basis of the animated film “Bebe’s Kids.” “When I saw him do comedy, I thought: ‘He does the jokes so easily. I bet I could do that.’ ”

He was right. In 1994, after years of regional touring and national exposure on shows like “Showtime at the Apollo” and HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam” he was hired to host “BET’s Comic View” and packed up to move to Hollywood. From there he joined the cast of “The Steve Harvey Show” playing Cedric Jackie Robinson, a role that earned him four of his five consecutive NAACP Image Awards.

A big-screen splash

His first big-screen role was in “Ride” in 1998, and he met his wife, Lorna, a wardrobe stylist on the film. The couple has a 3-year-old son and a 2-month-old daughter. (Cedric also has a 14-year-old daughter in St. Louis.) Since “Ride” he’s been in a handful of feature films in roles ranging from reverends (“Big Momma’s House,” “Kingdom Come”) to animals (the voice of a zoo bear in “Dr. Doolittle 2” and the voice of Rhino in “Ice Age”), from assorted bosses (“Serving Sara”) to detectives (“Intolerable Cruelty”).

But two projects in particular raised his profile: Spike Lee’s “The Original Kings of Comedy” in 2000 that documented a stand-up comedy tour comprising Cedric, Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Bernie Mac, and a Bud Light commercial that aired during the 2001 Super Bowl. In it, Cedric tries to play the ladies’ man and ends up treating his date to an unexpected and unintended beer shower. Ad experts later rated the commercial one of the funniest and most effective ads of that year’s game.

The next year he appeared as semiretired barber Eddie in the Ice Cube movie “Barbershop.” Eddie’s insensitive remarks about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson made headlines, but, despite the threat of a boycott, the movie was a surprise hit that went on to gross more than $75 million domestically.

In the sequel, Cedric’s Eddie, with the Frederick Douglass hairdo and opinions as sharp as his scissors, serves as a sort of emotional through-line for the film. Eddie’s back story is told through a series of flashbacks to the 1960s and the character is given more depth. And though Eddie tackles touchy topics like R. Kelly, Islam and the D.C. snipers (whom he refers to as “the Jackie Robinsons of crime”) and faces off in a kiddie pool against Queen Latifah, don’t expect the same degree of outrageousness -- or outrage.

“I don’t think there will be a big hue and cry this time,” he said. “The first time it was shocking and it caught you off guard. But now that you’ve said it, you can’t really shock the audience again. Now they’re kind of expecting it.”

But with the increased screen time, and his grinning visage peering over Ice Cube’s shoulder on “Barbershop 2” billboards, it’s obvious that Cedric is poised to move his persona to center screen permanently. “Out of everything he’s involved in, his film career is probably the biggest piece of his life right now,” said Rhone, his manager.

So what’s left to explore for a multimedia performer who seems to have tried his hand at just about every genre from writing (“Grown-A$$ Man” is his book of comic musings), to music (his vocals appear on Jay-Z’s “The Black Album,” and he pops up on Nelly’s “Nellyville” album), to television shows (he was the star and executive producer of the Fox series “Cedric the Entertainer Presents”)?

“Broadway,” Cedric said with a chuckle. “I’ve got to go in there and knock Nathan Lane out and be one of ‘The Producers.’ I’d love the opportunity to perform live on Broadway. I want to have that kind of life experience.” He hesitates, then realizes there’s no reason to limit himself. “And I want to move into doing some directing too.”

When asked the same question, his manager, producing partner, fraternity brother and friend of more than two decades, laughs. “What’s left?” Rhone quipped. “Maybe Cedric ice skating. How about ‘Cedric on Ice’?”