She had supporting roles in the box office hits The First Wives Club and Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday, as well as in Woody Allen's period comedy The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Dylan Kidd's critically acclaimed Roger Dodger.

While attending Cranbook Kingsbrook in Bloomfield Hills,[9] she enrolled in acting and singing classes, making her theatrical debut as Snoopy in a Cranbrook Theatre production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

[10] She would use her modeling income to commute to Los Angeles and New York to train with professionals, including dancer and choreographer Joe Tremaine, vocal coach Seth Riggs and Broadway Dance Center's Frank Hatchett.

Berkley commuted to Los Angeles on every school break and summer vacation, taking acting classes with Diana Hill and Nora Eckstein of the recently enstablished Young Actors Space and landing roles in Silver Spoons and the WonderWorks TV film Frog.

[24][6] Soon after graduating from Calabasas High School, she began training with acting coach Roy London[25] and left Saved by the Bell ahead of time during its fourth and final season, along with co-star Tiffani Amber Thiessen, to focus mainly on feature films.

[6] In the spring of 1994, Carolco Pictures opened the casting for the leads in Paul Verhoeven's new film Showgirls, the script of which Berkley had retrieved months earlier while the movie was still in development.

[28] Feeling a strong connection to the main character, she conducted thorough research, visiting strip clubs in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, and interviewing strippers at venues such as Stringfellow's, Palomino and Scores.

[32] During the extensive casting process, which saw many A-listers auditioning,[33] Berkley briefly reprised the role of Jessie Spano in Saved by the Bell – Wedding in Las Vegas before heading to Idaho to film the Disney Channel adventure movie White Wolves II: Legend of the Wild.

Verhoeven later remarked: "We didn't have any more hesitation when we met again Elizabeth Berkley.” Once the casting announcement was official, Berkley signed with Creative Artists Agency and began an intensive 12-week rehearsal period with choreographer Marguerite Derricks and the dance ensemble hired for the film.

[39] Only a few critics appreciated Berkley's work: Roger Ebert in The Chicago Sun Times wrote that her "fierce energy [was] always interesting",[40] and Entertainment Weekly remarked that "the electricity of her anger" made her "a true, leonine presence".

[52] In December 1995 Sherry Lansing, chairwoman at Paramount Pictures, asked Berkley to test for a supporting role in The First Wives Club,[51] a comedy starring Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler.

For her supporting role as a Russian girl living in Brighton Beach in Avi Nesher's independent drama Taxman, she studied with a dialogue coach at Berlitz for two months.

Berkley then starred in the psychological drama Last Call, by Chilean director Christine Lucas and in Malcolm Ingram's road movie Tail Lights Fade, but neither film was able to find theatrical distribution in the U.S.

The Times dubbed her performance "a convincingly vulnerable portrayal"[55] and the Evening Standard described Rusty as a "dejected stripper whom Elizabeth Berkley endows with lovely erotic languor and a true dancing talent.

[60] She managed to exhibit her musical talents anyway, by taking part in the 2001 Divas Simply Singing annual benefit concert at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, where she sang a rendition of the song Fever.

Berkley had three days to learn the part[51] and received praise for her performance, with Charles Isherwood of The New York Times even going as far as publicly apologizing to her for his past criticisms of her ability, stating that the fact she held "her own among this skilled company of scene-stealers is a testament to how much her talent has grown.

"[71] Between 2004 and 2007 she lined up some high-profile guest starring roles in the shows Without a Trace, Threshold and Law & Order: Criminal Intent and played a black widow in the TV movie Dark Beauty.

[72] Both her comedic stints impressed the critics: among them, Jason Zinoman of The New York Times (“an appealingly daffy Elizabeth Berkley Lauren” in an “excellent all-star cast”),[73] Roger Friedman of Fox News (“she held her own live on stage with Tony-winner Cady Huffman, Andrew McCarthy and Cheyenne Jackson.

[75] In 2006 she also starred in Douglas Carter Beane's critically acclaimed The Cartells: A Prime-Time Soap Opera, Live at Comix, opposite Joanna Gleason, Brian d’Arcy James, Pedro Pascal and David Rakoff.

[76] In 2008, Berkley signed on to appear in a multi-episode arc in the sixth season of CSI: Miami, portraying Julia Winston, Horatio Caine's ex-lover and mother of his teenage son.

Do not underestimate the power of the Jessie Spano fan.”[80] Due to the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike, which halted all scripted productions (including CSI: Miami), Berkley took on hosting duties for Bravo's reality series Step It Up and Dance, a competition featuring ten aspiring dancers competing for a cash prize of $100,000 and the opportunity to work with and perform for some of the country's top choreographers.

[86] In August 2009, her appearance on the cover of People magazine alongside Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Lark Voorhies and Tiffani Thiessen, marked the first Saved by the Bell official reunion after the show's conclusion in 1994.

[87] In 2011, shortly after completing her national tour to promote her first book Ask-Elizabeth,[88] Berkley played the lead role in the Hallmark Channel original film Lucky Christmas, about a struggling mother who wins the lottery but must recover her ticket from the glove compartment of her stolen car.

[90] Despite receiving several perfect scores from the judges, the couple was eliminated in the 9th week of competition, finishing in 6th place.During this period, Berkley still lined up a few comedic roles in episodic television: she played a rather unorthodox couple therapist in ABC Family Melissa & Joey (opposite Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence) and Zooey Deschanel's irresponsible and lazy boss in the Fox sitcom New Girl.She also played the title role in Greg Lauren's short film The Fashion Designer, part of Six01 Studio's installation The Blackout, depicting New York archetypes.

[102] On November 22, 2021, Berkley joined Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye, Lily-Rose Depp, Suzanna Son, Steve Zissis, Anne Heche, Juliebeth Gonzalez and Troye Sivan in Sam Levinson's upcoming HBO series The Idol.

Berkley played a pivotal supporting role but on April 25, 2022, with roughly 80% of the series already filmed, Variety reported that the show was set to undergo a major overhaul, with "drastic" changes in the cast and creative directions.

[105] It was later announced that most of the main and supporting cast members, including Berkley, Heche, Gonzalez and Zissis were no longer part of the project, which was quickly re-written, re-cast and re-shot, with Levinson's taking over directing duties from Seimetz.

[33] In June 2024, the producers of Cobra Kai (reportedly fans of Berkley from their childhood) offered her the role of Moon Taylor's mom Winnie, a character that had been referenced several times over the course of the seasons, but had never been shown.

[127]In October 2010, Berkley, along with Alec Baldwin, Slash, Nigel Barker, Bill Maher, Patrick McDonnell became supporters of the Shark-Free Marina Initiative to help combat sharks' disappearances from world's oceans.

Sponsored by the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and the Humane Society of the United States, the initiative reached out marinas across the world asking them to get involved by prohibiting sharks from being landed at their dock.