Zeta-Jones' stage career began in childhood. She often performed at friends and family functions when she was younger. She was a part of a Catholic congregation's performing troupe before she was 10. She also starred in a London production of Annie, as well as a version of Bugsy Malone. By 1987 she was starring in 42nd Street as Peggy Sawyer in the West End. Once the show closed, Zeta-Jones travelled to France, where she received the lead role in French director Philippe de Broca's 1001 Nights (also known as Sheherazade), her feature film debut.

Her exotic looks, along with her singing and dancing ability, suggested a promising future, but it was in a straight acting role, as Mariette in the successful television adaptation of H. E. Bates' The Darling Buds of May (1991-93), that she made her name. She briefly flirted with a musical career, beginning with a part in the 1992 album: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of Spartacus, from which the single "For All Time" was released in 1989. It failed to chart. She went on to release the singles "In the Arms of Love", "I Can't Help Myself", and a duet with David Essex, "True Love Ways". The Duet was her only chart single, reaching #38 in the UK singles chart in 1994. She also starred in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, as well as in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.


Playing Elena Montero in The Mask of Zorro was Zeta-Jones' first leading role.She continued to find moderate success with a number of television projects, including The Return of the Native (1994) and the mini-series Catherine the Great (1995). She also appeared in Splitting Heirs (1993), a comedy starring Eric Idle, Rick Moranis and John Cleese.

In 1996, she was cast as the evil aviatrix "Sala" in the action film, The Phantom , based on the comic created by Lee Falk. Her character did her best to kill Billy Zane's Phantom, while assisting villain Xander Drax (Treat Williams) in taking over the world with a weapon of doom.

The following year, she starred in the CBS mini-series Titanic, which also starred Tim Curry and Peter Gallagher. Steven Spielberg, who noted her performance in the mini-series, recommended her to Martin Campbell, the director of The Mask of Zorro. Zeta-Jones subsequently landed a lead role in the film, alongside Antonio Banderas. The following year she co-starred with Sean Connery in the film Entrapment, and alongside Liam Neeson and Lili Taylor in The Haunting. In 2000 she starred in Traffic with future husband Michael Douglas.


Catherine Zeta-Jones in her Academy Award winning role as Velma Kelly in Chicago.In 2003, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Velma Kelly in the film Chicago. Chicago also won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year. On 22 October 2005, she referenced her award, as guest host on the television show Saturday Night Live, surrounded by four male dancers, mimicking the Bob Fosse-inspired Chicago-style dancing, suggesting in song that, no matter how bad she might be that night, "They Can't Take My Oscar Away". For her role in Chicago, she specifically requested a 1920s-style short bob haircut, so her face could be seen and fans wouldn't doubt she did all her dancing herself.

In 2003 she voiced Marina in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, as well as starring in Intolerable Cruelty with George Clooney. In 2004 she was in The Terminal, as well as Ocean's Twelve, the sequel to Ocean's Eleven. In 2005 she reprised her role as Elena in The Legend of Zorro, the sequel to The Mask of Zorro. She stars in and produces the rugby-related comedy, Coming Out. The film is produced by her company Milkwood Films.