1979–2003: Work in background roles, film debut and television appearances
Bell played background roles in the late 1970s and early 1980s in over 30 films, including Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979), while also performing on off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway. Bell said that other actors at the Actors Studio thought doing stand-in and background work was "stupid or degrading", but he believed otherwise. In 1982, he had an uncredited scene in the Sydney Pollack film, Tootsie, playing a waiter at the Russian Tea Room that Pollack used as a tracking shot. He told Movieline, "You know, when you're talking about Tootsie, it's the tip of the iceberg, because those other twenty-nine films I did aren't even on IMDb."
He worked on The Verdict (1982) for two weeks as a courtroom reporter in the trial. He recollected it being a "great opportunity" watching Sidney Lumet and Paul Newman, while also learning the technical aspect of acting. For every role he plays, starting with the initial reading of the script to the final shot of a production, he keeps a journal of various questions about and motivations for his character. "I write all kinds of stream-of-consciousness things that help me." He would have his first speaking role in the 1983 film Svengali playing a waiter with three lines. The same year Bell had a small speaking role as a reporter in the drama Sophie's Choice. In the mid-1980s, Bell said "I was doing off-Broadway plays three nights a week, working on my craft. And a director at the Actors Studio said, 'You know, Tobin, you've been doing that for a while. I think you should go to Hollywood and play bad guys'." Bell moved to Los Angeles and was cast in his first feature film, Mississippi Burning in 1988, as "tough and street smart" FBI agent Stokes.
In 1993, Bell was cast in another Pollack film, The Firm as an assassin called "The Nordic Man". The same year, he played Mendoza in In the Line of Fire, where he attempts to taunt an undercover Clint Eastwood into proving his loyalty by murdering his partner, played by Dylan McDermott. He went on to appear in an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld titled "The Old Man" playing a record store owner. He appeared in two episodes of NYPD Blue playing different characters in 1993 and 1996. In 1994, Bell played a hospital administrator in the second episode of the first season of ER and went on to appear in an episode of another medical drama Chicago Hope, playing a terminally ill inmate on Death Row. That same year, he portrayed Ted Kaczynski in the made-for-television film Unabomber: The True Story. In 1997, Bell guest starred in an episode of La Femme Nikita and Nash Bridges. The following year, he guest starred in an episode of Stargate SG-1 and a two-part episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. Bell made a one-scene appearance in the 2001 episode Army of One of "The Sopranos" playing Major Carl Zwingli. In 2003, he was cast as the villain Peter Kingsley during the second season of 24.
