Early career Pasdar turned his attention to campus stage productions and rediscovered an early interest in writing and acting. No longer able to play football, he dropped out of school and returned home, taking a job with a theater group,
People's Light and Theatre Company. There, he worked on sound and lighting as part of the stage crew responsible for set construction. He had a painful accident on the set, cutting off the end of his left thumb. His resulting medical compensation paid for attendance at the
Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York City. Pasdar was also selected to play a bit part as a police officer in the
Dixie Chicks video for their song "
Goodbye Earl". The music video won both the
Academy of Country Music and the
Country Music Association's Video of the Year Awards in 2000.
Film At the age of 19, he auditioned for a role in
Top Gun. Director
Tony Scott was so impressed that he wrote the part of "Chipper" just for him. This led to bigger roles in
Solarbabies (1986),
Streets of Gold (1986), and
Kathryn Bigelow's cult vampire movie
Near Dark (1987), with Pasdar in the lead role of Caleb Colton. His other major roles include
Vital Signs (1990). Pasdar got his biggest break in movies, when he starred as a beautiful woman opposite
Julie Walters in the British movie
Just Like a Woman. In 1992, he left Hollywood and returned to New York, working as a cashier for room and board, while taking the occasional small part, such as Frankie in
Brian De Palma's ''Carlito's Way'' (1993). Adrian Pasdar wrote and directed the short film
Beyond Belief and directed his first feature film, the
art-house neo-noir Cement, a contemporary retelling of
Othello, in 1999. The $1.7 million independent feature, which won Best Picture awards on the festival circuit, starred
Chris Penn,
Jeffrey Wright,
Sherilyn Fenn, and
Henry Czerny, and was written by
Farscape screenwriter
Justin Monjo. "I've used every ounce of energy and every drop of money I had to make
Cement," Pasdar said.
Television Pasdar's major break into television came in 1996, when he was cast as the title character on the Fox series
Profit. He also guest-starred in the
two-hour season finale of the fourth season of
Touched by an Angel. From 2000 to 2002, Pasdar played the lead role of anthropology Professor Declan Dunn in the spooky cult drama series
Mysterious Ways on
PAX. Pasdar played David McClaren in the final two seasons of the
CBS drama
Judging Amy from 2003 through 2005. In 2006, he had a high-profile guest role as
Gabrielle Solis's sleazy lawyer in
Desperate Housewives. He starred as
Nathan Petrelli in the NBC superhero drama
Heroes. Pasdar based his mysterious character on "the most morally liquid characters" that he's encountered in his life. The character is not based on one particular political figure, but on a melange of different ones, both good and bad. Pasdar's character was killed off in an episode that aired November 30, 2009. Pasdar voices
Hawkeye in the
animated series The Super Hero Squad Show and voiced
Captain America in the
Black Panther animated series. Having also voiced
Iron Man in the English dub of the
Iron Man anime series, Pasdar reprised the role in ''
Marvel's Avengers Assemble (seasons 1–3), Ultimate Spider-Man, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.''. Pasdar also played a role on
The Lying Game as Alec Rybak, a corrupt district attorney. In 2013, Pasdar guest-starred in the seventh and final season of
Burn Notice as Randall Burke for three episodes. From 2014 to 2018, he played the recurring role of
Glenn Talbot / Graviton on the Marvel TV series
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and from 2016 to 2017, recurred as Nolan Burgess on the series
Colony. He also starred in the pilot of the
Amazon Studios series
The After. He also portrays the
DC Comics character
Morgan Edge in season 3 of
The CW's
Supergirl. ==Personal life==