[6] Director Bryan Singer was impressed with Stanford's performance in Tadpole, and cast him as Pyro in the 2003 blockbuster X2, a sequel to X-Men.

And in that same year, he starred in the New Hampshire–based comedy, Live Free or Die, playing a wannabe tough-guy criminal named John Rudgate.

His character from the film The Hills Have Eyes appears in the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II via Zombies Mode.

Stanford played the lead role of James Cole in the television adaptation of the movie 12 Monkeys, which premiered in January 2015 on Syfy.

[9] He also was cast in the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead[10] as the recurring character Jim, first appearing in the episode that aired on August 26, 2018.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Stanford said that he was "shocked and thrilled" to get the call to return and also voiced his delight at getting to wear a superhero costume, something he did not get to do in either of his previous performances.