Melrose Place, film, and television
In 1992, she was cast as Jo Reynolds in the Fox soap opera Melrose Place, and appeared on the show as a regular character until 1996. The role garnered Zuniga major exposure to television audiences, though her television career had begun in the early eighties with a minor role on Family Ties (1984) as a girlfriend of Alex P. Keaton. She also appeared in the 1995 miniseries Degree of Guilt.
In 1994, Zuniga appeared in the release of a video for Bob Seger's previously released 1976 hit "Night Moves". In the video version of the song, she and a pre-Friends Matt LeBlanc are shown in a 1960s drive-in theater, where Zuniga as a dark, edgy young woman becomes a visual fascination for LeBlanc as a clean-cut young man. In 2000, Zuniga appeared as a bartender in the music video for Evan and Jaron's single "Crazy for This Girl".
Later, Zuniga would work as a voice actor on the animated television series Stories from My Childhood (1998), and also had a lead role in the miniseries Pandora's Clock (1996), an action thriller filmed in Seattle, Washington.
From 2005 to 2006, she was cast as Lynn Kerr on the ABC family series Beautiful People, and also had a recurring role in the series American Dreams. She also appeared in a recurring role as Victoria Davis on The CW series One Tree Hill between 2008 and 2012, appearing in over forty episodes. During this time, she appears in several made-for-television movies including Secret Lives (2005), The Obsession (2006), Christmas Do-Over (2006), Mail Order Bride (2008), and On Strike for Christmas (2010).
In 2007, Zuniga co-produced and co-directed (with Steven Latham) the documentary "The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED" — a look at the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design conference held in Monterey, California. She also starred in the scripted web series Novel Adventures, which premiered November 3, 2008 from CBS Interactive. In February and March 2008, Zuniga appeared onstage in a production of The Scene by Theresa Rebeck, at the San Francisco Playhouse.
Zuniga reprised her role as Princess Vespa from the 1987 film Spaceballs, by voice-over in the television spin-off Spaceballs: The Animated Series. She also reprised her role from Melrose Place in an updated version, but it was short-lived, as the series was cancelled after just one season in 2009–10. She starred in 2010 in the hit Hallmark Channel film A Family Thanksgiving. In 2013, Zuniga appeared as a postal worker in the Hallmark Channel series Signed, Sealed, Delivered, as well as the television film based on the series and in Gone Missing with Lauren Bowles.
Zuniga appeared in a guest starring role in the VH1 scripted series Hindsight as Libby. In 2016, she was cast in a new TV movie for Hallmark Channel, When Duty Calls, with Judd Nelson and Daniella Monet.
More recently, Zuniga starred in Heartbeats, Witness Unprotected and A Christmas Arrangement with Miles Fisher.
In 2018, Zuniga directed her first feature film, The Protégé, with Keenan Tracey and Jeannette Sousa. It was released in 2019 under the title Deadly Assistant.
In 2019, she co-starred in the television film Gates Of Paradise, opposite Lizzie Boys and Jason Priestley, and Christmas In Paris with Karl E. Ländler. In 2020, she was a guest star in NCIS as Stacy Gordon, Navy commander.
In 2021, she was a guest star in Fantasy Island as Margot, with her old Melrose Place co-stars Josie Bissett and Laura Leighton. In 2022, Zuniga appeared on Dynasty as Sonya Jackson, alongside another old Melrose Place co-star Grant Show.
Since 2024, Zuniga, along with Leighton and Courtney Thorne-Smith, have hosted an IHeartRadio podcast, Still The Place.
In April 2024, it was announced that a Melrose Place reboot was in development, with Zuniga joining Leighton and Heather Locklear in the cast.
In June 2025, it was announced that Zuniga would reprise her role as Princess Vespa for the upcoming Spaceballs sequel, Spaceballs: The New One, which will be directed by Josh Greenbaum and is scheduled for release in 2027.
2026, she join the cast of the movie Love Song for My Texas Ranger. She is joined by Ryan Rottman (90210), Tammin Sursok (Pretty Little Liars), and Jana Kramer (One Tree Hill).
