Burns started his acting career in the 1980s with appearances in the short film Proof (1980), the television mini series The Winds of War (1983, with Jeremy Kemp, Lawrence Pressman, and Elizabeth Hoffman), the television crime drama Braker (1985, with Allan Graf), the crime thriller No Man's Land (1987, with Bernie Pock, Kenny Endoso, Danitza Kingsley, Jeff O'Haco, and Joseph Michael Roth), and the television horror film Something Is Out There (1988, with Gregory Sierra, John Putch, Christopher Carroll, Matthew Faison, Anne Ramsay, and Brian Thompson).