In 1997 he directed and appeared in his first feature film, "Paradise Falls," which centered around two Depression-Era North Carolina boys who turn to bank robbing when the family farm faces foreclosure. A well-received but sparsely distributed film, it was awarded Best Feature Under a Million at the 1998 Hollywood Film Festival and Best Dramatic Feature at the 1998 Worldfest Houston and Worldfest Charleston. By 2000, Searcy began appearing primarily in feature films large and small, most notably in character roles opposite Tom Hanks in "Cast Away" (2000), Colin Farrell in "Tigerland" (2000), Robin Williams in "One Hour Photo" (2002) and Chris Rock in "Head of State" (2003).
Most of Searcy's TV credits have been telefilms and miniseries notably "Nightmare in Columbia County" (CBS, 1991) playing an assistant sheriff and "A Mother's Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story" (ABC, 1992) as an apparently straight arrow combatant in a bitter custody dispute accused of child molestation by his estranged wife. Searcy was well cast as a regular on the highly touted supernatural drama "American Gothic" (CBS, 1995) playing the hapless deputy Ben Healy to a supremely evil sheriff (Gary Cole). The show was shot in his native North Carolina. He also had a plumb role as astronaut Deke Slayton in producer Tom Hanks' epic HBO docudrama chronicling America's journey to the moon in 1998, and that same year he appeared in the regular cast of UPN's time-travel series "Seven Days."