Internationally, she was best known for her roles as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn in the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998), and as Danielle Rousseau in Lost (2004–2010), and also appeared in multiple award-winning films such as When Father Was Away on Business (1985) and The Abandoned (2010).

Furlan was born on 7 September 1955 to an intellectual and academic family that included a large number of university professors in Zagreb, PR Croatia,[1] which at the time was one of the six constituent republics of Yugoslavia.

[7] In 2002, she returned to Croatia after eleven years to take the lead role in Rade Šerbedžija's Ulysses Theatre Company's production of Euripides' Medea.

Furlan wrote the play Until Death Do Us Part (Croatian: Dok nas smrt ne razdvoji), which is set in 1970s Zagreb.

[8] Twice a month during the late 1980s, Furlan made the three-hour commute between Zagreb and Belgrade, where her husband was based, to act in theater productions in both cities.

[6][15] Furlan wrote a public letter expressing her deep disappointment over the behaviour of her fellow citizens and colleagues and the threats of the nationalists against her.

[17] Furlan died at her home in Los Angeles on January 20, 2021,[18] at the age of 65, having suffered from complications of West Nile fever in the time leading up to her death.