Cedric the Entertainer takes on dual identities in The Cleaner, a fish-out-of-water comic variation on The Bourne Identity co-starring Lucy Liu and Nicollette Sheridan. He plays an amnesiac janitor who’s convinced by a blonde temptress that he’s a special forces commando and that she’s his wife. But he’s brought back to reality by a waitress/undercover FBI agent who helps him piece his life back together before they collaborate to take-on a gang of high-tech criminals. Here, Cedric ruminates on his latest role.
KW: What interested you in this picture?
CE: For me, it was an opportunity to do an action comedy. That’s what I was looking at. To do the kind of comedies where I also get to kick down some doors and fire-off some automatic weapons. And then as the producer I had the casting privileges to cast Nicollette and Lucy Liu. That, right away, that was like, “Yeah, I’m going to work for that. I’ll be there. What’s the start date?”
KW: So, what was your favorite scene working opposite them?
CE: I guess it would have to be the scene where Nicollette was trying to use her powers of seduction to get me to remember something that she needed me to know. I just would mess that up quite often, so that she had to keep doing it over and over again. I would totally mess up and jump up and go, “I’m sorry! What’s my line? You do the dance over again, and then I’ll get it.”
KW: What do you think audiences will like best about this picture?
CE: I think that they’ll like the fact that it’s just a loose fun comedy. You’ll have the opportunity to see me doing some action stuff and becoming this really sexy, action star. I think that people are going to love that, and start to wonder why I wasn’t cast as 007. I think the biggest surprise is going to be the actual physical shape that I’m in in the movie. People are going to be like, “Whoa! Ced really put it on to do this movie! He really got ripped.” You can tell.
KW: In this film, you’re a janitor for a video game company. Do you enjoy playing video games in real life?
CE: I do. I play a lot of the sports games on the PlayStation 2. My karate moves helped, actually, when the PlayStation 3 came out, because I was on line the first night. I beat-up like seven people to get one. But I didn’t make the news. I was like, “Yo, I beat at least seven people up, including two old ladies. to get the first 3.” You know what I’m saying? I got in line about 11 and they opened at midnight. And I jumped the line like the school bully. I just walked up and went, “Ay, I want this one.” And they were like, “Hey buddy, we been in line all night.” And I was like, “Whatever, dog.” I had just been making Codename: The Cleaner, so I started doing those same karate noises. That kinda’ scared them. They went, “What is he doing?“ And people just started falling out.
KW: Thanks, Cedric.
CE: Cool, later man.