He may be a dating disaster with a bottle of Bud Light, but Cedric the Entertainer can proudly call himself a Hollywood leading man and one of the "Kings of Comedy."

		Cedric the Entertainer Where: Heinz Hall. When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $38 to $55; 412-392-4900.

At the moment, he's assuming the latter title on a 12-city summer tour (minus the other kings) that stops at Heinz Hall on Sunday night.

Like most comic actors, the 41-year-old Cedric Kyles started in stand-up, working the clubs in his native St. Louis. He hit the comedy specials and talk shows in 1992, and from 1997 to 2000, he toured as the least-known entity on the "Kings of Comedy Tour" with Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Bernie Mac.

His big-screen career began with the 1998 comedy "Ride," and he has delivered memorable performances in "Big Momma's House," "Intolerable Cruelty," "Johnson Family Vacation" and especially the "Barbershop" movies, where his cranky character, Eddie, drew the ire of Jesse Jackson and Rosa Parks for a crack about Parks getting too much credit in the civil rights struggle.

This summer, Cedric has been more in the middle of road, at the wheel of "The Honeymooners" remake, which got beaten up by critics and at the box office. He has a number of films in the works including a remake of Rodney Dangerfield's "Back to School" and "The Cleaner," an action comedy with Lucy Liu and Nicollette Sheridan in which he plays an amnesiac janitor who believes he's an undercover government agent.

Speaking of government agents, Cedric recently encountered a few in Washington when he was invited last month to headline the White House Correspondents Association dinner. It's given him a few more good stories to tell.

You're so busy. How and why do you make room for stand-up?

It's really the first love and one of those places, too, where you have your commentary, things that you write and you believe and you get the audience's immediate response to that. It's definitely great doing movies, but the immediate response you get from that live audience, you just can't replace. You think about it: You shoot a movie in August, and it doesn't come out until the next May. You don't remember half the things you've done by the time it comes out.

Do you like solo gigs, or do you prefer the Kings of Comedy tour?

I'm definitely one that liked riding the group. I really enjoyed showing up like rock stars. Kings of Comedy was definitely another level of doing stand-up. The solo gig gets you in shape for doing those shows with top headliners. You have so much material and volume and experience you have been working on, you're just ready for the moment.

What kind of things are you touching on on this tour?

I'm hitting everything. Michael Jackson. Jessica Simpson. The runaway bride. Nobody is exempt for me. I talk about other social issues, all the plastic surgery people are getting. Hip-hop stars going to jail. I talk about the war a little bit. My visit with the president. Try to have fun with that kind of stuff.

Is there anything in there that you know is going to shake people up a little bit?

I always talk about the war, and I make the statement, 'I don't know if this is a war we can win.' When I say that, people go, 'Oh, he mean,' you know. Then I go on to make my point in a humorous way, and people seem to be entertained by that. That's the thing that is most shaky. Whenever I feel like I can say something that is poignant, I take those chances, too, and that can happen on any given night with me. No matter what soapbox I get on, I can just start firing off.

Are there any hard feelings still from the "Barbershop" character, and do they associate you with that more than they should?

It didn't seem to be the audience. It definitely was the political powers at the time, people who had different agendas wanting to make a point about it. It hasn't carried on any more. For the most part, Eddie was a beloved character, one of the great film characters, maybe because he was so controversial. When people find characters that either they don't like, or kinda like, or feel 'that was over the top,' those kinds of characters remain important to people.

I was glad to have done that character and developed it in such a way that he was controversial, because that was his job in the movie, to be a bit of rabble rouser, if you will. It was big, and it definitely -- it had me in tabloids. I had never been a tabloid star before. I had to go on Larry King and explain myself. That was totally different for me.

Did you say, 'I was just following the script!'?

Nah, 'cause I wasn't following the script. I improv-ed quite a bit. The writers had written a version of the controversial speech. I definitely did my own take on it, and something I thought was a lot more digestible. The way it was written, to me, had more of a mean spirit. I didn't think that was necessary.

Tell me about your White House gig.

That was a lot of fun. To get invited by the White House, you know, somebody with a criminal background like myself. [Laughs, then breaks into character:] 'You know, I got four felonies, three wards and a baby-mama lookin' for me, now! I don't know what they want me up in the White House for -- I was quite alarmed.'

No, you get summoned by the president, even if you have different politics than him, just the opportunity to be in such close proximity to great power ... you know, the guy is president of the United States. I may not have voted for him, but I definitely enjoyed the experience, and he definitely was a gracious host. So was the first lady, both very kind people and very nice, and we had a great time. I was going to take a few more stabs at him until I met him. Then you feel kind of bad, you're meeting someone and you go 'Aww, he retarded.' You can't talk about him. [Cracking up:] On TV you can't tell he's a little slow, and he rode the little bus to school.

I guess you can do that now, though, huh?

Oh, yeah. When it's over. You're not in his proximity and the Secret Service is not breathing up and down and lookin' at everything you say -- you can say it. The Secret Service, that's a special group of people there. The bathroom attendant, he Secret Service. The doorman, Secret Service. The busboy, Secret Service. Don't try to get an extra scrap off the president's plate; you'll get your hand removed from you.

Did they seem to know who you were?

They did. I really think the president and first lady sit around often at night and watch TV [laughs]. They got the boxed set of 'Homeboys in Outer Space.' They are very 'hood rich. No, movies like 'Barbershop' put me on that kind of playing field as one who is controversial. ...

I can't believe they saw that.

They may have watched it. They may have. I don't know. 'Intolerable Cruelty.' They definitely had an awareness of me. Now, the vice president -- no idea who I was. He kept asking me to get him a drink. 'This is nice. Another vodka and tonic.'

'The Honeymooners' got some rough reviews. Did you agree?

The thing is, when you take on an iconic TV figure and a legendary comedian, and you try to do anything modern with it ... We definitely had some critical reviews, and there were some positive ones. I thought that Ebert kind of hit it on the button with what we were trying to accomplish with this movie. I was disappointed mainly in the box-office success, but I didn't think it was the kind of movie that should have come out with blockbusters in the middle of the summer anyway. It's just not that kind of film, but the studios have their own goals and program that they're on.

As an actor, you just make the movie. I thought I did a solid job of trying to revise a character such as Ralph Kramden and make him modern. I thought it was important to pay reverence to Jackie Gleason and at the same time to do something new with it. But when you're doing a movie, you're just another guy on the ship, for real. ... The director is just as important, the studio has their own goals, the producer, and, at the end of the day, it comes out as 'Cedric the Entertainer's movie,' but it wasn't just my movie. That's all I have to say on that rap.

Why did you start going as Cedric the Entertainer?

Somebody had already taken Sinbad and Whoopi -- Whoopi was taken [laughs]. I was gonna go as Whoopi, Whoopi Jones. No, really, it was happenstance. I was performing, and I got pretty popular in St. Louis, where I'm from, and people started hiring me pretty early to do shows, and I didn't have a lot of material, so to do a 30-minute set, someone would pay you $500. And I wanted that $500, but I didn't have 30 minutes of comedy, so I would dance, I would sing, I would rap, anything I had to do to fill up my 30 minutes. So when the guy was about to introduce me, he would say 'This next comedian coming up. ...' I would say, 'Don't call me a comedian; call me an entertainer.' He called me Cedric the Entertainer. I had a great show. It stuck, and I was Cedric the Entertainer from then on.