While receiving accolades for his work in Hope Floats, Baywatch, One True Love, and Perfect Game, he is most known for his role as Theodore 'Beaver' Cleaver in the 1997 film Leave It to Beaver based upon the television series by the same name.
[citation needed] Finley starred in his first national commercial, for Shell Oil,[5] when he was three years old and living with his family in the Dallas suburb of Garland, Texas.
Finley acted in the films What's Eating Gilbert Grape, A Perfect World, 8 Seconds, and appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on three occasions.
[8] He then appeared in Hope Floats as Travis, a sad child who dresses up as a dozen different characters ranging from Barney the Dinosaur to Charlie Chaplin.
[9] In 1995 Finley was one of the 3,000 actors that auditioned for the role of young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.