Dane at the red carpet of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, April 2008
Dane caught the acting bug while in high school, where he also excelled at sports. His interest lead him to amateur stage work, where his participation in a production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" solidified his passion for acting from that moment on.
He relocated to Los Angeles and made his TV debut in a 1991 episode of "Saved by the Bell" (NBC, 1989-1993). More supporting roles in episodic work followed, including appearances on "The Wonder Years" (ABC, 1988-1993) and "Roseanne" (ABC, 1988-1997), and in TV-movies like "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story" (1995). His feature film debut came in 1999 with "The Basket," a historical drama with Peter Coyote and Karen Allen.
Dane's first turn as a TV doctor came the following year with the ill-fated medical drama "Gideon's Crossing" (ABC, 2000-01), which was intended to give star Andre Braugher a home for his formidable talents. Though the series lasted just 20 episodes, it did serve as a conduit for Dane to meet actress Lara Flynn Boyle via a cross-over episode with her series "The Practice" (ABC, 1997-2004). The pair were an item for a brief but arguably intimate period in between her back-and-forth relationship with Jack Nicholson - reportedly, with Boyle going so far as to ink Dane's name on her person.
Following "Gideon," Dane gave TV another shot with "The American Embassy" (Fox, 2002), a comedy-drama about the staff of the U.S. Embassy in England from actor/director/producer Danny DeVito's Jersey Pictures