Rifkin's extensive film credits include Silent Running (1972), The Sunshine Boys (1975), The Big Fix (1978), JFK (1991), Husbands and Wives (1992), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Wolf (1994), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Negotiator (1998), Boiler Room (2000), Keeping the Faith (2000), The Majestic (2001), Dragonfly (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and Pulse (2006).
Rifkin has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in film, on stage, and in television. His association with Writer Jon Robin Baitz has been especially fruitful. In 1991, his performance in Baitz's play The Substance of Fire won him the Obie, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and Drama-Logue awards for Best Actor. The following year he performed in Baitz's Three Hotels, for which he received a second Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nomination. In 1996, he starred in the film version of Substance; in 2002, he appeared in the Baitz play Ten Unknowns at Boston's Huntington Theatre; in 2004, he starred in his play, The Paris Letter at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, a role he reprised the following year at the Laura Pels Theatre in New York City; and appeared in the ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters, which Baitz created, as a character named Saul, Rifkin's real-life name.
Rifkin is the reader for a number of audiobooks including The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993), Sang Spell by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (1998), and Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli (2003).
On television, Rifkin has appeared in numerous made-for-television movies and miniseries, had regular roles on The Rockford Files, One Day at a Time, Husbands, Wives & Lovers, The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, and Alias, and has made guest appearances on a number of series, including Mary Tyler Moore, Sex and the City, The Bob Newhart Show, The Good Wife, ER Season 2 (1995) as Doctor Carl Vucelich in seven episodes, Law & Order, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, in Falcon Crest as Dr. Hal Lantry in the third season (1983), Soap, Hill Street Blues, and The Outer Limits, for which he received a CableACE nomination.
Rifkin received a 1998 Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor for the Broadway revival of Cabaret. Additional theatre credits include David Hirson's Wrong Mountain, Arthur Miller's Broken Glass, Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country, and Neil Simon's Proposals.
In 2001, his association with Touchstone Television began when he played a ruthless intelligence agent Arvin Sloane in Alias, opposite Jennifer Garner. Until 2011, he played second-in-command businessman Saul Holden on Brothers & Sisters, opposite Sally Field. He also played Bonnie Franklin's second boyfriend on One Day at a Time.
