An actor all his life, Noah Fleiss appeared on both stage and television before making his first film appearance at the age of nine. His debut starring role was in the family-oriented road movie Josh and S.A.M., as the "Strategically Altered Mutant" little brother to child actor Jacob Tierney. In 1995, he played the younger version of D.B. Sweeney in the comedy Roommates with Peter Falk. The same year, Fleiss earned his first Hollywood Reporter Young Star Award for the TV tearjerker A Mother's Prayer. The next few years of his career consisted mostly of made-for-TV movies (more tearjerkers) and guest spots on such shows asTouched by an Angel. In 1999, he starred in the Sundance award-winning drama Joe the King, the directorial debut of actor Frank Whaley. He appeared in the segment "Someone for Rose" in the episodic drama Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, which also played at the Sundance Film Festival. Fleiss played the title character Joe, the troubled teenage child of unloving parents (Val Kilmer and Karen Young). He was also cast as a troubled teen in the comedy drama Double Parked (2000), which was screened at Slamdance. In 2001, he returned to the realm of made-for-TV movies, appearing in the acclaimed Lifetime drama The Truth About Jane and the HBO original movie The Laramie Project. Fleiss continued to make festival favorites, notably as the straight-laced football player in the "Non-fiction" section of Todd Solondz's Storytelling, which premiered at Cannes. His next few features were independent films with good soundtracks: the high school movie Bringing Rain (with music by Vic Chesnutt) and the coming-of-age drama Evergreen (with music by John Stirratt).