Here's how picky Mario Cantone is about his stage roles: He turned down parts in two of the biggest hits in Broadway history, with no regrets.

He was asked to play the wisecracking Timon in "The Lion King." But, he says, "I didn't want to paint my face green and strap a puppet onto my ass eight shows a week."

Then he was cast as Carmen Ghia, the swishy director's-assistant in "The Producers." He pulled out because he didn't want to sign a one-year contract.

"It's a fun role, but it's a gay cartoon. I would have been bored in three weeks."

Instead, Cantone signed up for "Assassins," Stephen Sondheim's black comedy about nine presidential assassins, which is up for seven Tony awards next month.

He abandons the lighthearted, catty banter he perfected on "Sex and the City" as Charlotte's hyperactive stylist pal, Anthony, and gives a creepy, manic performance as would-be Nixon-killer Samuel Byck.

"This role is completely different," he says. "A straight Jewish guy with a gold chain. He's tough, and he's crazy, too. It's something no one's ever seen me do before."

Still, to keep his comic edge sharp, Cantone will give a performance Sunday night at the Tarrytown Music Hall. The event — Cantone rarely performs outside Manhattan — is a preview of what theatergoers can expect from the motor-mouthed comedian when he unveils a one-man show on Broadway this fall.

Sipping a Starbucks decaf iced mocha an hour before his Broadway showtime, Cantone, 44, says he was an "obsessed" fan of "Assassins" during its short-lived Off-Broadway run in 1990.

A decade later, he caught word of the musical's revival and immediately called director Joe Mantello, who'd given him his Broadway debut, as Nathan Lane's replacement in 1995's "Love! Valour! Compassion!"

Mantello said he'd already intended to cast Cantone, who assumed it would be as Charles Guiteau, the eccentric lawyer who murdered President James Garfield in 1881.

"It's not a gay role, but it's a very flamboyant, theatrical role," Cantone says.

But Mantello's vision had Cantone as Byck, an overweight, out-of-work tire salesman who tried to hijack a jet and fly it into the White House in 1974. Onstage, Cantone delivers one of Byck's angry, paranoid monologues in a Santa Claus suit, a reference to Byck's apparel during a Washington, D.C., protest the Christmas before the assassination attempt.

(For the record, Cantone's torso is toned; the Santa suit is padded.)

"This show is brilliant and beautiful," he says. "It's a challenge every night, because it's such rich material."

Taking on this darker role, he says, was worth the wait of nearly three years.

"Assassins" was preparing to open in the fall of 2001. After Sept. 11, a musical about murderers of American presidents didn't seem appropriate, so it was postponed indefinitely.

Once the production was rescheduled, Cantone rejected any offers that posed a conflict. More recently, he put off his one-man show until October, so he could continue with "Assassins" through its closing on July Fourth.

In Sunday's comedy show at the Music Hall, audience members will hear snippets of Cantone's shrieky, high-octane brand of humor: musical parodies spoofing Michael Jackson, boozy impersonations of Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, loud riffs on growing up Italian.

(His opening act is WKTU radio personality "Goumba Johnny" Sialiano.)

The New York Times once called Cantone "a proponent of the comedy of outrage." So what outrages him today?

"9/11 still does. Not being able to find Bin Laden. George Bush's slight retardation. And Nicole Kidman pisses me off for some reason, I don't know why. She acts like she's shy and she's about as shy as I am."

Such talk — combined with Cantone's choosy nature — may help explain why the comic hasn't yet landed that blockbuster movie or TV series. (A big-time film may finally be in his future, though, if the much-talked-about "Sex and the City" movie actually happens. "They're working on the negotiations," he says. "There's a lot of people involved.")

But Cantone has rejected lots of fame-producing, money-making ideas that have been dangled before him: hosting a talk show, appearing on a reality show, launching a radio show.

He even walked away from a TV deal with Imagine Entertainment — helmed by Uber-producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer — because he wasn't happy with changes they wanted to make to a sitcom he'd pitched.

"I said, 'If I do it your way, yes, I'll make a lot of money and I'll have a series. But if it doesn't work, I can never go back and do it the way I feel deep in my gut that it's going to work.' "

So dedication to his craft won out over quick cash.

That means he's lived in the same Chelsea apartment building for 21 years, the same one he moved into not long after graduating from Boston's Emerson College (where classmates included Denis Leary and Gina Gershon).

And that low-key lifestyle, which includes his partner of 12 years, actor-composer Jerry Dixon, suits Cantone just fine.

"I wish I cared about money, because then I'd have some, but I don't," he says. "I always say I'm poor and semi-famous."

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