Born in Niskayuna, Schenectady County, New York, Eric Thal attended Haverford Preparatory School in Haverford, Pennsylvania, where he served as Student Council President.
He then moved on to attend Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he majored in engineering. However, with the encouragement of his acting teacher, Richard Brewer, he left school after one year to pursue a career in acting.
Thal subsequently studied at The Neighbourhood Playhouse Theatre, where he honed his craft under the guidance of Richard Pinter and Ada Brown Mather, focusing on classical theatre.
Following his studies, Thal worked in commercials and as a magician in New York City before auditioning for a small role in Sidney Lumet's film "A Stranger Among Us" (1992). Impressed by the young actor, Lumet invited him back to audition for the leading role, and despite having no professional credits, Thal landed the part of an Hasidic scholar who becomes involved with an undercover police officer (Melanie Griffith).
Although the film failed to impress critics or the public, Thal's performance was praised for its carefully measured intensity and equanimity. He went on to play a police officer and the anti-heroine's husband in the farcical "The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag" (1992) and a small role in "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993),as a man driven to suicide after an intimate encounter with a con artist (Will Smith).
Thal later co-starred as Donald Sutherland's disaffected son in "The Puppet Masters" (1994) and as a man who must face romance after the excitement has worn off in "Joe's So Mean to Josephine" (1996). He also played the hirsute strongman in the TNT Biblical epic "Samson and Delilah" (1996),opposite Elizabeth Hurley.
The following year, Thal was cast as a musician engaged to Halle Berry in the ABC TV-movie "The Wedding" (1998).
