New Attitude

“It’s a great moment, but you just want to be a comedian again,” says Cook, who made six movies, played sports arenas and saw himself spoofed on TV sketches all in the past two years.

“I’ve been through the peak, I’ve hit the highest echelon. Then they hammered me, the stake in the heart,” says the comedian, who spends Memorial Day weekend doing three shows in the Colosseum at Caesars Palace today through Sunday.

Believe it or not, “I welcomed it,” he claims, “because now I’m just Dane Cook. Now it’s just about the creativity and it’s just about what I deliver on a gig-to-gig basis. I’m very comfortable there.

“It was fun to feel like you’re fighting the heavyweight champion for a little bit,” he adds. “But I just want to perform and create, and not be so judged as, ‘He’s the best,’ and so kind of ripped down as ‘He’s the worst.’ Now people know who I am, and that I’m not going anywhere. … Now you can just look gig to gig and let me know what you think.”

Three nights in a 4,200-seat theater is downsizing only if you’ve paced a boxing ring-like stage in the center of a sports arena. Cook was an early adapter to MySpace and built a rabid college-age following, which took him from being an almost underground attraction at the Paris Las Vegas theater in 2003 to the Mandalay Bay Events Center three years later.

But the 36-year-old comedian lost his mother in July 2006 and his father in April 2007, both to cancer. “It was the most incredible time of my career and probably the most difficult time of my personal life,” he says. “I didn’t really get a chance to stop and appreciate what I earned, or grieve my parents. … Even when they were sick, it was like, ‘Dane, you’ve got to keep going to work.’ “

He finally took that extended break and returns now with a new attitude about both his stand-up act and, especially, his movies. “Financially, I don’t need to say yes to ‘Dude Where’s My Car 2,’ ” he says.

He is proud of the next one to be released, “My Best Friend’s Girl,” due in September. “This is the first one I feel like works as an entire piece,” he says of the comedy in which Jason Biggs’ character convinces Cook to take out his girlfriend (Kate Hudson) and show her such a rotten time that she’ll come running back. “It’s an acting role within a comedy.”

Cook wants to emulate comedy veterans such as Steve Martin by developing interesting movies through his own production company. “If that means waiting a little longer, I’m gonna wait. When I find the (right) thing I’ll go to work. Until then, I’ve got my stand-up comedy.”

And that’s not standing still either. “My material’s going to be slightly different. A lot of it’s brand new. I want to take my time with it,” he says. He has “matured with my crowd,” and promises, “You’ll be seeing a new fighting style as I come into these three shows. … I never wanted to know just one style of comedy.”

Sounds like those TV sketch comedians might want to come and take notes. They might even see Cook out of his trademark jeans and T-shirt. “I always now get myself a suit or dry-clean a suit to bring down to Vegas. I’ve got this Rat Pack thing the past few years. One night you have to dress up, do a steak dinner with close friends or family.”

When it comes to those impressions, Cook says he likes the one by Jason Sudeikis on “Saturday Night Live” (but offers no comment on the one by Ike Barenholtz on “MADtv”).

To him, it was like, “Hey man, once you’ve hit that pop lexicon and kind of arrived, this is when you go through the spankin’ machine and we have a little fun with it.” And, he says, “If you can’t take that as a comedian, if you can’t take that as a joke, you’re in the wrong profession.”

When it comes to “the more hard-core backlash,” he thanks his late parents. “I was raised right, man. My mom and dad really kind of told me everything that was going to happen before it did. … ‘Dane, they’re gonna come gunning. Get up that ladder a little bit, they’ll do whatever they gotta do to knock you.’ You’ve got to look at it as a (messed)-up compliment,” he says.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.