He is known for film roles in Higher Learning, School Ties, Dazed and Confused, Good Will Hunting, Pitch Black, Tigerland, Hart's War, Tears of the Sun, The Family that Preys, 2 Fast 2 Furious, The Cave, The Break-Up, A Good Day to Die Hard, Olympus Has Fallen, and Transcendence.

[11] Hauser made his film debut in School Ties (1992), which starred many young and up-and-coming actors such as Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O'Donnell and Ben Affleck.

In 1995, Hauser played the role of the leader of the campus neo-Nazi skinheads in the John Singleton film Higher Learning.

In 2000 he played William J. Johns in Pitch Black and voiced the character in the prequel video game.

In 2002, he played a racist American prisoner-of-war in Hart's War with Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell.

During that same year, Cole filmed other indie productions such as Like Dandelion Dust from a novel by Karen Kingsbury, Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys and the CBS television pilot The Tower.

She is known for having played Elizabeth Wakefield in the 1990s television series Sweet Valley High, but is mostly retired from acting as an adult.