More than 20 years into his comedy career, Jamie Kennedy believes he is still a work in progress.

“There are about six levels to stand-up. First you have to get the courage to get on stage, then you have to get people’s attention, keep people’s attention, make them laugh, then make them think, and then change the way they think,” said Kennedy, 49. “I think I’m at level 5, maybe starting to get people to think. Level 6, where you change people’s thinking, that’s only for masters, people like George Carlin.”

In his quest to reach that sixth level, Kennedy needs a lot of stage time. He’ll get it in Portland this weekend when he’s scheduled to do four shows at Empire Comedy Club on Friday and Saturday. Kennedy’s weekend of shows comes as Empire is finishing its transition from a music and events space to the city’s only full-time comedy club.

The club’s management announced the change in late August and said that the venue would officially become a comedy-only club in January, with more national headliners. Besides Kennedy, other national acts scheduled to appear at Empire in the coming months include Carmen Lynch, T. Murph and Matt Braunger. The club is also featuring local comedians and other comedy events, including something called The Basement Tapes, happening on Sunday and the subject of this week’s Indie Film column, in which four stand-up comics will be adding funny commentary to a screening of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Jingle All The Way.”

Kennedy is also an accomplished actor, having done dozens of comic and serious roles over the last two decades. He’s probably best known for playing Randy Meeks in the “Scream” horror-comedy movies, starring Courteney Cox and David Arquette. He also got to play various characters and do lots of funny voices as the star of “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment” on the WB network in the early 2000s. The show featured a hidden camera, with Kennedy pulling practical jokes on people.

He’s also played serious roles over the years including a psychology professor on the CBS drama “The Ghost Whisperer” and a serial killer on the CBS police drama “Criminal Minds.” In the upcoming film “Roe v. Wade,” he plays abortion-rights activist Larry Lader.

“I’m an actor and a comedian, and it’s not that hard to go between the two, for me,” said Kennedy. “It’s all make-believe.”

Kennedy grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia in the 1970s, where his father was a machinist and his mother a paralegal, and he points to the silly sitcom “Three’s Company” as one of his favorite early shows. He also was drawn to gritty dramatic movies of the era, like “Serpico” with Al Pacino and “Chinatown” with Jack Nicholson. As a teenager, he knew he wanted to be involved with TV and films, but wasn’t sure how. So when the film “Dead Poets Society” was filming in Philadelphia, he tried out and was cast as an extra. At 19, he left home for Hollywood.

He said, while auditioning for roles, people started to tell him he should do stand-up, though he had never really thought about it. He started performing at local clubs and fell in love with the art. His career since then has been a mix of comedy and drama, clubs, TV and films.

On stage, Kennedy does characters and voices often. Like a bit when he talks about how actress Angela Bassett can make even the most mundane moment super dramatic. He pretends to be a little boy asking his mom to pass the salt, then becomes Bassett, glaring at the audience and making dramatic pronouncements in response to the request, like “What did I tell you about the goddamned salt?”

He also has a bit where he plays a female airport worker who recognized him, and in a high, squeaky voice begins to make a fuss over him. At one point, as the worker, Kennedy says, “Oh, Jamie Kennedy, I used to love you back in the day.”

Then, as himself, Kennedy replies “Back in the day? The day is still here. I’m not done.”

Kennedy says a lot of his comedy on stage is self-deprecating, focusing on himself and on his craft as a comedian. He talks about how easy it seems to offend audiences today. He stays away from politics because he feels people come to see a comedy show to escape. But he will touch upon race or inequality or other societal issues he thinks are relevant.

He doesn’t shy away from saying things that might be offensive, and he hopes that audiences are relaxed enough, and smart enough, to get the joke.

“People today are annoyingly literal about everything, too uptight,” said Kennedy. “When you tickle somebody, it disarms them, right? My job is to verbally tickle people, to disarm them, and then get them to see my point, and get them to laugh.”