A focused young actor with his eyes on the prize, Casper Van Dien began acting professionally in the early 1990s, appearing on the Saturday morning TV series "Saved By the Bell" (NBC) and in the syndicated series "Dangerous Women" (1991). He played a surfer in the short-lived CBS series "Freshman Dorm" (1992), then went to New York for a year (1993-94) with a role in the ABC daytime drama "One Life to Live".
Returning to Hollywood in 1994, Van Dien scored his first big notice playing the recurring role of Griffin Stone, who dated Donna (Tori Spelling) with unfulfilling results, on Fox's "Beverly Hills, 90210". The attention he earned as a result led to roles in the TV-movies "The Colony" (ABC, 1996), and "Nightscreen" (NBC, 1997). On the big screen, Van Dien debuted in a bit part in 1991's "The Color of Evening" and had a prominent role in "Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus" (1995). But it was his turns as 50s icon James Dean (opposite real-life wife Carrie Mitchum as Pier Angeli) and as Johnny Rico, the unwitting soldier who finds the ability to lead the "Starship Troopers" that solidified his status as a rising star. Van Dien was then tapped to swing from a vine as Lord Greystoke in "Tarzan and the Lost City" (1998) and to portray a hip vampire in "Modern Vampires/Revenant" (1999).