Martin Lawrence is not running quite like he used to, but he’s feeling just fine.

The comedian and actor pulled a muscle shooting a footrace with Will Smith in their new movie, “Bad Boys for Life,” the third in a hit buddy-cop franchise that was birthed 25 years ago. This installment, not surprisingly, has a number of jokes about its leads getting older. (The “ride together, die together” tagline could be changed to “dye together,” now that Smith’s character needs to touch up the gray in his goatee.) And yet it still has the high-octane action that defines these movies.

Lawrence’s character, Marcus Burnett, much like Lawrence now, is a little reflective. They’ve both had long careers with ups and downs, and are thinking about their pasts as well as their futures.

In a phone interview between appearances in New York, Lawrence, 54, spoke about his break from movies, comedy today, his work on the self-titled sitcom that solidified his stardom in the ’90s and whether, after a controversial turn hosting “Saturday Night Live,” he still watches that show. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.

“Bad Boys for Life” is your first major film role since “Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son” in 2011. Why did you take that long a break from starring in films?