Bridges first acted professionally at the age of five in the television film The Kid from Nowhere (1982), directed by his father. After a break he returned once more in the television film The Thanksgiving Promise (1986), starring the entire Bridges family. Not wanting to be a child actor, he left acting and attended L.A.'s progressive Oakwood school. The school had a strong emphasis on the arts, which got him interested in acting again. He followed it up as a theater major and literature minor at New York's Bard College. Before earning his bachelor's degree, Bridges spent his junior year in England, studying at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, living in a tiny basement flat in Chelsea, and attending West End theatre productions on free passes.
Although classically trained, he still worked as a "cater waiter" in New York and Los Angeles for several years each before he started getting roles in films, television series, and theater. He starred in the short-lived NBC series Conviction as Nick Potter, a Lawyer from an "old money" family of prominence, who leaves his job at a private law firm to join the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. He is also known for his starring role in the 2002 film New Suit, the 2004 film Samantha: An American Girl Holiday, and the 2009 Love Comes Softly movie series films Love Takes Wing and Love Finds a Home, as well as a recurring role on the TV series Dawson's Creek. He also had a guest role in season four of the series Charmed's two-part premiere episode as Paige's boyfriend, Shane. He played the recurring character Tom Hastings in the Bionic Woman series. He has also played supporting roles in the films Drive Me Crazy (1999), Frequency (2000), Happy Campers (2001), and Mona Lisa Smile (2003). In A Holiday Engagement (2011) he plays David, a man hired to impersonate a woman's fiance to her family over Thanksgiving. Similarly, in Family Plan (2005) he plays Buck, a man hired to impersonate a woman's husband to her boss for the night.
Bridges married artist-inventor Caroline Sherman Eastman in 2002 at Burning Man and again on January 2, 2003 at a small ceremony in Kauai, Hawaii. They have 2 children, Caroline, born in 2003 and Orson born on October 20, 2005. They currently live in Woodstock New York and Topanga California. Bridges' maternal grandfather, Marvin Landfield, was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants.
Bridges appears in the TNT drama series Rizzoli & Isles, which premiered in July 2010.
