Sbarge made his stage debut in 1981 in Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry IV, Part 1. The following year he made his Broadway debut opposite Faye Dunaway in the short-lived play The Curse of an Aching Heart. Other New York stage credits include Hamlet (1982), Ah, Wilderness! (1988), Ghosts (1988), The Twilight of the Golds (1993), The Shadow Box, and Voices in the Dark (1999).
Sbarge's film credits include Risky Business (1983), Vision Quest (1985), My Man Adam (1985), My Science Project (1985), Carnosaur (1993), The Hidden II (1993), Babes in Toyland (1997), Independence Day (1996), BASEketball (1998), Message in a Bottle (1999), Pearl Harbor (2001), Home Room (2002) and The Duel (2015).
Sbarge has appeared in numerous television series and television movies, including A Streetcar Named Desire with Ann-Margret in 1984; The pilot of the Fox series "Werewolf" in 1987; Billionaire Boys Club, Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in 1990; Murder 101 with Pierce Brosnan and Final Verdict with Treat Williams in 1991; Breast Men with Chris Cooper; Quicksilver Highway with Christopher Lloyd in 1997; and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge with Halle Berry in 1999.
He had recurring roles in five episodes of Star Trek: Voyager in 1996, and in the first four episodes of the sixth season of 24. From 2001-04, Sbarge was a regular cast member of The Guardian, starring Simon Baker. He voiced the character Professor Zei in a guest-star appearance in the second season of Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender. He was in an episode of Six Feet Under. In 2007, he appeared in a two-part episode of Journeyman. In 2009, he appeared in an episode of The Mentalist. In 2010, he was in "Practically Perfect", a season five episode of Dexter, as Jim McCourt, an Internal Affairs Agent.
He had a recurring role as Howard Aucker on The Young and the Restless. He played Brian McGuire on Better Days, which lasted for five weeks before being canceled. In 2011, he first appeared in Once Upon a Time, playing the dual roles of Archie Hopper, a therapist, and his fairy tale counterpart, Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio. In 2013, he played Larry Hermann on Chicago Fire. He played Inspector David Molk, a philosophizing SFPD homicide inspector, on TNT's 2014 series, Murder in the First. In 2016, he made a cameo appearance as the deceased father of Jimmy McGill on the television series Better Call Saul.
