Hurley has been associated with the cosmetics company Estée Lauder for over fifteen years since the company awarded Hurley her first modelling job at the age of 29.
They have featured her as a representative and model for its products, especially perfumes such as Sensuous, Intuition, and Pleasures, since 1995. As an actress her best known cinematic works to date have been as Vanessa Kensington in Mike Myers' hit spy comedies, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and as the Devil in Bedazzled (2000).Hurley currently owns an eponymous beachwear line.
Hurley made her first film appearance in Aria (1987). She has since appeared in the movies Passenger 57, EDtv, Bedazzled, and Serving Sara. In 1997, she received her first and only acting award, the ShoWest Supporting Actress of the Year, for her performance in the spy spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. When Hugh Grant founded and became the director of Simian Films in 1994, Hurley was credited as one of the producers for the company's two Grant vehicles, Extreme Measures (1996) and Mickey Blue Eyes (1999). In 2000, she was publicly criticised for breaking a five-month acting strike to film an Estée Lauder advertisement, for which she was fined $100,000 (£70,000 in 2000) by the Screen Actors Guild and labeled "Elizabeth Scably" by protesters.