Atkins was working as a lifeguard when he was asked to audition for "The Blue Lagoon," in which he appeared throughout wearing little more than a faux leather loincloth. He then posed scantily clad for numerous posters, subsequently being chided by columnists and pundits for being one of the first in a generation of "cheesecake" males. Follow-up movies did not change the image, particularly "A Night in Heaven", in which he was not only a male stripper having an affair with Lesley Ann Warren (and almost every other woman in the flick), but is punished at the end by Warren's husband by being left naked on a boat sinking in a leech-and-gator-infested swamp. Atkins dropped the curly perm he had worn in "Blue Lagoon" for his own straighter hair, and little-by-little his "sun-dyed" blondness became his more natural dirty blond, but he has yet to have another shot at an A-list feature. His voice, slightly high-pitched, also seemed in contrast to the usual American heroic baritone. Yet he worked frequently, often in low-budget action programmers or comedies, like "Mortuary Academy" (1988) and "Shoot" (1992). Atkins was a medical student playing a deadly game of Dungeons & Dragons in "Shakma" (1990) and an American lifeguard on something called "lifeguard exchange" in "Wet and Wild Summer" (1993), in which he was transported to an Australian beach community filled with weird folks. In a change of pace, he was a psychotic video director in "Die Watching" (1993). Atkins made an appearance in the more prestigious "It's My Party" (1996) reteaming with Randal Kleiser.

Atkins first appeared in a TV movie playing a Mormon army veteran who returns to his stateside community only to realize that the austere ways and polygamy are no longer to his liking in "Child Bride of Short Creek" (NBC, 1981). During the 1983-84 season of "Dallas" (CBS), he was paramour to Linda Gray, and in 1985, hosted the NBC summer series "Rock 'n' Roll Summer Action". It was not until the 90s that his TV presence became more regular, usually in lower-budgeted, made-for-cable TV-movies: He was a man accused of multiple rapes in "Fatal Charms" (Showtime, 1992), a member of a space crew forced to take refuge in an a mysterious space ship in "Project Shadowchaser III" (HBO, 1995) and one of a party stuck in the Rocky Mountains in "Angel Flight Dawn" (ABC, 1996).