His first day on the set of the independent film “Once Fallen” working with veteran actor Ed Harris, and Mount Vernon High alumni Chad Lindberg was nervous.

A lot could ride on the 32-year-old actor’s performance as an abused and troubled youth.

Known for his portrayals of dark, edgy characters and quirky whiz-kids, Lindberg hopes that his work with the Oscar-nominated Harris will open a door previously shut to him — a leading role in a feature film.

If that wasn’t enough pressure, his first day on the set was his first time working with Harris.

“I was sweating in places I didn’t even know I could sweat,” Lindberg said.

The film stars Lindberg as Beat, a young man who suffers physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his father. Harris’ character, Liam, kills Beat’s father and ends up in prison, leaving his own son, Chance (played by Brian Presley), to grow up without his father.

Between takes, Harris was kind and a man of few words who made gentle suggestions, Lindberg said.

“We got it,” Lindberg said. “He gave me a hug afterward. He said: ‘Good job.’”

Praise indeed from the versatile, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning and four-time, Oscar-nominated actor.

“I think we were all nervous working with Ed. Chad was able to take that fear and that nervousness and channel it into the work,” said Ash Adams, “Once Fallen” writer-director, who also plays a corrupt DEA agent.

Lindberg is no newbie to the silver screen. Raised in Mount Vernon by his parents Pete and Luwana Lindberg, he moved to Hollywood after he graduated from high school in 1995. After two weeks, he began getting parts and has since been making his living as an actor. He’s worked with other heavyweight actors besides Harris, including Bob Hoskins, Antonio Banderas, Chazz Palminteri, Dennis Quaid, George Clooney and Bruce Willis.

“Chad has a haunted quality to him,” said Adams, whose production company Bravado Pictures, along with Emmett/Furla Films, Freedom Films and actress Amy Madigan (Harris’ wife), produced “Once Fallen.”

Adams said he wanted to hire Lindberg within 15 minutes of meeting him and didn’t even have him read for the role of Beat. The writer-director said that Lindberg has the charisma and gravitas of Ed Norton, as well as the depth to be a character actor of the likes of a Steve Buscemi.

“He has a certain toughness to him, but he also has a vulnerability, which is a lethal combination,” Adams said. “I think Chad has the ability to be a leading man. I think he can hold a picture.”

On television, Lindberg has appeared in everything from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to “The X Files,” and held re-occurring roles of crime lab tech Chad Willingham in the first season of “C.S.I.: New York” and of Ash, a hunter of supernatural creatures, in the second season of “Supernatural.”

Lindberg has also starred in several independent films playing self-destructive characters, including in 2002 “The Flats,” which was filmed in Skagit County, and “Push” and “Punk Love,” both released in 2006 and now out on DVD.

Directors of feature films, including “The Rookie,” “October Sky” and the breakaway 2001 summer hit “The Fast and the Furious,” have cast Lindberg in supporting roles of quirky or shady characters.

In “Push,” Lindberg portrays one of three friends who become involved in the drug trade and their lives spin out of control. In “Punk Love,” Lindberg plays one of two street kids who set off on a crime spree to try to achieve a better life.

“I play a lot of troubled characters,” Lindberg said. “It’s more fun that way. I have a hard time playing the straight guy.”

Adams expects to have a rough cut of “Once Fallen” completed by March and will submit it to film festivals later this year.

The crime drama is just one of a few projects that Lindberg has in the works this year. He will play a small spot in an episode of Fox’s series “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (starting Feb. 13), and will be featured in the independent documentary “My Big Break.”

The documentary focuses on the journey that Lindberg and his former roommates — Wes Bentley (“American Beauty”), Brad Rowe (“Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss,” “Shelter”) and Greg Fawcett — take trying to make it as actors. The four men were filmed by Tony Zierra, who lived in the same house.

The four actors’ struggles resulted in Zierra’s 2001 documentary “Carving Out Our Name,” which was screened Sept. 10, 2001, at the Toronto Film Festival. Initially, Zierra received offers to distribute the documentary, said Lindberg, who was in Toronto for the screening.

But the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened the next day, cooling the proposed deals, Lindberg said. Both Elizabeth Yoffe, who produced the film with Zierra, and Lindberg say that Bentley’s agents worked to kill the project because they worried about how Bentley was portrayed in the documentary.

After the proposed deals fell through, Zierra left Hollywood and destroyed all copies of “Carving Out Our Name.”

Eventually, Zierra, who with Yoffe is based on the East Coast, rebuilt his relationship with all three actors and pulled out his original footage to create a new documentary, “My Big Break.”

Lindberg said that the documentary is similar to the popular HBO television series “Entourage” in that it shows the scenes behind Hollywood’s glamorous facade. Unlike Entourage, “My Big Break” is raw and doesn’t pull any punches, Lindberg said.

Rather than seek a distributor, Zierra and Yoffe are screening the documentary on university campuses or to select audiences. Researchers at George Washington University who are studying the effects of fame attended one screening.

Yoffe, who worked as a casting director in Seattle, said that Lindberg could become a leading man, depending on the role. She said Lindberg is like actor Hugh Laurie, a man who Hollywood might not have considered hot, but who now is the lead in the Fox series “House.”

Lindberg said he hopes that the popularity of leading men such as Tobey Maguire (“Spider Man”) and Shia LaBeouf (“Transformers”) means there is room for actors who don’t fit the ideal of masculine beauty.

“It’s becoming more acceptable,” Lindberg said. “People want to see (actors) more like themselves.”

Marta Murvosh can be reached at 360-416-2149 or .