Cedric The Entertainer is outright hilarious!

From the moment he walks into a room he's bound to have you in stitches; effortlessly offering punch-lines and having you cracking up even when he's being serious.

While he reigns as one of the 'Kings of Comedy,' the 44-year-old's career in Hollywood is no laughing matter.

The former star of 'The Steve Harvey Show' has starred in a laundry list of films that include 'Johnson Family Vacation,' 'Kingdom Come,' 'Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins,' 'Big Momma's House,' 'Be Cool,' 'Talk To Me,' 'Cadillac Records' and both of the 'Barbershop' films.

Most recently, the Jefferson City, Missouri-bred funnyman returned in the sequel to the animated blockbuster, 'Madagascar.'

At press time, 'Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa' had already made more than $160 million at the box office in the U.S. alone.

Cedric The Entertainer recently starred alongside John Leguizamo and Haley Joel Osment on Broadway in 'American Buffalo.' Unfortunately, the play was canceled after its first week.

(Read 'American Buffalo: Shutters Within First Week Of Opening' for details.)

I caught up with Cedric The Entertainer recently at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills where he spoke about 'American Buffalo' and a bunch of other things.

'American Buffalo ' was your Broadway debut. Though the show was recently canceled, I'm sure you are still proud of your work in it.

We were having a good time and it [was] definitely different for me playing a dramatic, strong character. There [was] this crazy writing with the language they use, but it's something I wanted to do to stretch out and show a different speed and pitch. I wanted to do Broadway and work a different muscle. It was a cool opportunity that came my way and I thought this was a good time to do it. The movie world is slow and it's not really a lot of great roles being offered. This was just an opportunity to do something different. It's challenging because I never really worked [that] hard before. You have to perform in front of an audience live and do a play where you can't leave once the curtain goes up. It's not like a movie where you just do that scene for a day. In stand up, it's all you. You can go and choose where you're gonna stand or you know if a joke isn't working that you can go stand somewhere and try something else. With a play, it's all about that written word and you have to deliver it to make that character come to life. It opened up a new world for me.

As expected, the 'Madagascar ' sequel is making big bucks at the box office. Being a comic who is always ready to improvise, was it hard for you to stay on script?

I would imagine that's the hardest part for me, especially being a comedian because you like that energy in the room and you like to know what another person is bringing. It usually helps to amplify the situation where you can find things that you wouldn't do if you were sitting in an isolated booth where all you do is basically hear a voice. You're in there by yourself and it's a non-creative space in a way because you're trying to be creative, but you have to stick to the words because you don't have the freedom to say what you wanna say. Some of the stuff has already been moving along. The animation takes place in or and they fly and ship it out and go through all these processes so you realize you have to stay fairly close to the idea of what the script is. There was a little improv. We were trying to come up with this thing where he was trying and I was like that seems like a little church testifying kind of thing right there. That was fun. That was probably one of the only moments you get to improvise in these scenes because they have to lock it to the drawings so much that it's hard to jump off the page. We had a few chances to play a little bit and add that into the movie. Of course they recorded it over such long periods of time – it was about two years of going back and forth and having them call you back in.

Have you ever thought about doing the Flip Wilson story on the big screen?

Flip Wilson was one of my favorite comedians growing up. Probably just by appearance, that's somebody that I liken myself to and identify myself with. I loved the variety show that he had. I don't know about that because the wig would be one thing, but the stockings would be something different. Nobody wears stockings anymore.

The last time I spoke with you we talked about you guys doing a reunion tour of the 'Kings of Comedy.' Now that Bernie Mac has passed, do you think it will still happen?

It seems to be less of an idea at this point now that Bernie isn't here. At the same time, it was sad, but we all went back to Bernie's memorial and that was the first time that we were all together again. Though it was a sad occasion, it ended up being pretty joyous because all of us chose to take the high road and make it a comical event with the way we approached it and I'm sure Bernie would appreciate that. He was a consummate professional, but a comic first. He was definitely about making you laugh. At that time it felt like something that we all wanted to do again, but since then it's only been talk. Everybody's been trying to figure out timing because if we did it, it would have to happen in the spring and I'd already committed to do this play, Steve [Harvey] did another run on the road and just shot another DVD and D.L. [Hughley] is [doing] his thing on CNN so at this point it's not on the burner, but it still exists.

All of you all have evolved so much with your comedy. Did you ever think that you and D.L. in particular would become so political with your humor and that you'd be doing things like hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner?

When you start out doing the comedy, you're mainly trying to satisfy your audience that's right there in front of you and I don't think that you identify with yourself growing and going into a certain direction where it's gonna be this one thing or that. You just find yourself having a point of view about politics and world family. These things just kind of grow and hopefully your material matures in a way where your audience grows with you and you gain an audience. I think it's really important because we live in a broader world. At that point of starting out, comedy was kind of specific. Even when I started out, it was all about improvs and white comedy clubs. Then came the 'Def Comedy Jam' era and then it became very urban. Matter of fact, urban Black comics got to the point where we were making more money than most of the white comics so it was all about being Black. You can have a totally black show. You didn't have to have anything that crosses outside of that, but now we're in a society where people cross cultures and ages. People are friends with folks that aren't necessarily in their age group and they're friends. You have friends that are white and Indian and all kinds of stuff so they might go out together and now in your comedy you can't just say you're gonna talk to her because she is with them and those are her friends. Now it's important as an artist that you are truthful and honest, but I think diversity helps you grow and come up with more interesting and funny material.