Lloyd began his career apprenticing at summer theaters in
Mount Kisco, New York, and
Hyannis, Massachusetts.
The Harlot and the Hunted,
The Seagull (January 1974),
Total Eclipse (February 1974),
Macbeth,
In the Boom Boom Room,
Cracks,
Professional Resident Company,
What Every Woman Knows,
The Father,
King Lear,
Power Failure and, in mid-1972, appeared in a
Jean Cocteau double bill,
Orphée and
The Human Voice, at the Jean Cocteau Theater at 43 Bond Street. In 1977, Lloyd returned to Broadway for the musical
Happy End. and in Jay Broad's premiere of
White Pelican at the P.A.F. Playhouse in
Huntington Station, New York, on
Long Island. In 1977, he said of his training at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Meisner, "My work up to then had been very uneven. I would be good one night, dull the next. Meisner made me aware of how to be consistent in using the best that I have to offer. But I guess nobody can teach you the knack, or whatever it is, that helps you come to life on stage." Lloyd’s first film role was psychiatric patient Max Taber in ''
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), alongside future co-star Danny DeVito. He is known for his work as "Reverend" Jim Ignatowski, the ex-hippie cabbie on the sitcom Taxi, for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series; In 2009, he appeared in a comedic trailer for a faux horror film version of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory entitled Gobstopper'', in which he played
Willy Wonka as a horror film-style villain. In 2010, the Vermont-based
Weston Playhouse, of which Lloyd's brother Sam was an active member, asked if there was a role Lloyd would be interested in taking on. Lloyd chose
Willy Loman in
Death of a Salesman, which played at Weston and at other venues throughout
Vermont that fall. Also that September, he reprised his role as
Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in
Back to the Future: The Game, an episodic adventure game series developed by
Telltale Games. That same month, the production company 3D Entertainment Films announced Lloyd would star as an eccentric professor who with his lab assistant explore the various dimensions in
Time, the Fourth Dimension, an approximately 45-minute
Imax 3D film that was planned for release in 2012. On January 21, 2011, he appeared in "
The Firefly" episode of the
J. J. Abrams television series
Fringe as Roscoe Joyce. That August, he reprised the role of Dr.
Emmett Brown (from
Back to the Future) as part of an advertising campaign for Garbarino, an
Argentine appliance company, and also as part of Nike's "Back For the Future" campaign for the benefit of
The Michael J. Fox Foundation. In 2012 and 2013, Lloyd voiced Doc Brown in two episodes of
Robot Chicken. He was a guest star on the 100th episode of the
USA Network sitcom
Psych as Martin Khan in 2013. In May 2013, Lloyd appeared as the narrator and the character Azdak in the
Bertolt Brecht play
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, produced by the
Classic Stage Company in New York. On the October 21, 2015, episode of
Jimmy Kimmel Live, Lloyd and
Michael J. Fox appeared in a
Back to the Future skit to commemorate the date in the
second installment of the film trilogy. In May 2018, Lloyd made a cameo appearance in the episode titled "No Country for Old Women" of
Roseanne, where he played the role of Lou, the boyfriend to the mother of Roseanne and Jackie. He is set to reprise the role in an episode of its spin-off,
The Conners, airing May 4, 2022. In late 2019, he provided the voice of
Xehanort in the "Re Mind" downloadable content of
Kingdom Hearts III, taking over the role from the late
Leonard Nimoy and
Rutger Hauer, and reprised the role in the 2020 video game
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory. By July 2020, Lloyd was cast as The Alchemist in
Man & Witch, a family-friendly fantasy-adventure film directed by
Rob Margolies, with
Jim Henson's Creature Shop set to create the puppets for the film. In March 2021, Lloyd played the best friend of
William Shatner in the romantic comedy film
Senior Moment, also starring
Jean Smart. in 2024 In September 2021, Lloyd portrayed
Rick Sanchez in a series of promotional interstitials directed by Paul B. Cummings for the two-part
fifth season finale of
Rick and Morty, a character inspired by Lloyd's portrayal of Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown from
Back to the Future, alongside
Jaeden Martell as
Morty Smith. In March 2022, Lloyd appeared in a promotion for the
time travel film
The Adam Project along with two of its stars,
Ryan Reynolds and
Mark Ruffalo. In April 2022, it was announced that Lloyd would star in
Spirit Halloween: The Movie, a film produced in partnership with the
Spirit Halloween retailer. He plays Alec Windsor, a wealthy land developer who disappeared one Halloween night, and whose spirit is said to haunt the town in which the film is set each year on Halloween. The film was released on
video-on-demand (VOD) on October 11, 2022. In April 2023, Lloyd guest starred in an episode of the
third season of
The Mandalorian, portraying the role of Commissioner Helgait. In June 2023, Lloyd was announced to be starring in the live-action
Knuckles series, which premiered in April 2024. == Personal life ==