Zane’s first two screen roles were in the science fiction films Back to the Future in 1985 and Critters in 1986, around the same time he appeared in the music video for Sheena Easton’s song “Do It For Love”. In 1988, he played Tony Gambini alongside Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote: A Very Good Year for Murder. Zane also appeared in an episode of Matlock entitled “The Nurse”. In 1989 he reprised his henchman role in Back to the Future Part II. Earlier that same year, Zane gained international recognition with the role of villain Hughie Warriner in the thriller Dead Calm, alongside Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill. He also starred in the NBC film The Case of the Hillside Stranglers (1989), and Adam Sandler’s “no budget” debut Going Overboard (1989) which was not released to a wider audience until 1996.

Zane’s first starring role was in a 1990 independent film, the low budget science fiction thriller Megaville. In 1990, he also co-starred in the film Memphis Belle, a film version of a 1944 film about a World War II Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, as the bombardier. Zane also forayed into television work, and in 1991 he appeared as John Justice Wheeler in several episodes of David Lynch’s hit TV-show Twin Peaks. In 1992 Zane co-starred alongside Tilda Swinton in the film adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando. In 1993, he played the Shakespearean actor “Mr. Fabian” in Tombstone, took a starring role in Sniper and played a playboy named Harry, posing as the elusive, albeit fake Damon Bradley alongside Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. in Only You.

He also starred in a couple of Tales from the Crypt productions, including Tales From the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, where he played a henchman of Satan called The Collector, and the episode “Well-Cooked Hams”, where he played a poorly skilled magician who killed to steal good tricks from other magicians. In 1996, Zane played the eponymous classic comic book hero in the big budget action film The Phantom, based on Lee Falk’s comic.

In 1998, he starred in and produced I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, a silent film based on Ed Wood’s last script, intended as a parody on bad filmmaking. He won several awards at the B-Movie Film Festival, including Best Movie and Best Actor, for this work. The year after, he starred opposite Timothy Dalton, Bruce Payne, Sean Pertwee and Leonor Varela (who became his fiancé after shooting ended) in a TV-movie about Cleopatra. Zane played the part of Mark Antony.

In 1999, Zane participated in the first Gumball 3000 rally, driving a 1964 Aston Martin DB5.

Zane was instrumental in realizing the critically acclaimed film The Believer, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival in 2001. In it, he portrayed neo-Nazi Curtis Zampf, and starred opposite Ryan Gosling. The same year, he also had a cameo as himself in the comedy Zoolander.

In 2006, Zane starred in Arthur Allan Seidelman’s West End production of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks as an acerbic gay dance instructor opposite Claire Bloom. The same year, he appeared in the Turkish film Valley of the Wolves Iraq (Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak in Turkish), part of the Kurtlar Vadisi franchise. The film tells the story of the U.S. Army run amok in Iraq, eventually brought into check by a Turkish soldier. Zane plays Sam William Marshall, a cruel U.S. soldier who is the main antagonist in the film.

Zane was later engaged to marry British model-turned-actress Kelly Brook, whom he met when they co-starred in the movie Survival Island (2005), also known as Three. They split in April 2008, got back together again shortly thereafter, then ended the relationship in August 2008. Zane dated Croatian model Jasmina Hdagha in 2010, but they broke up later that year.

Through a friend he met American model Candice Neil who is the mother of his two daughters and to whom he is also currently engaged. Their first daughter, Ava Catherine, was born in 2011, and their second daughter, Gia, was born in 2014.

Zane starred in the 2012 action/thriller film The Kill Hole, and in January 2017 he appeared in a commercial for KFC as a gold-colored Colonel Sanders to pitch the restaurant chain’s newest limited-time flavor, Georgia Gold Honey Mustard BBQ chicken. Zane also appeared in an episode of Community, season 6’s “Advanced Safety Features”.