[2] He first rose to prominence in the late 1970s for his portrayals of troubled-but-sensitive characters in films like The Deer Hunter (1978), The Onion Field (1979) and Hair (1979).

[15] He then had a brief role in the 1998 war film The Thin Red Line,[16] portrayed Captain Ransom in the two part episode "Equinox" of the television series Star Trek: Voyager in 1999,[17] and appeared in the recurring role of Donald Lydecker in the first and second seasons of the 2000 television series Dark Angel.

[23] In 2017, Savage spoke at a tribute honoring director Richard Donner, held by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

[25] In the same year, Savage lent his voice to a monologue on the title track of the album This Town by Steve Smith of Dirty Vegas.

He helped secure Mandela's involvement in the 1992 film Malcolm X, directed by Spike Lee, on which he was the assistant production manager for the South Africa unit.