Cole Hauser

from Bridle & Bit Horse Magazine Aug. 2020

Buzz the Police Horse retires from the force after 15 years and will live with His Patrol Partner

Cole Hauser’s great-grandfather was movie mogul Harry Warner a founding partner of Warner Bros., one of the greatest production companies of all-time. His mother Cass Warner founded her own production company Warner Sisters, and his father Wings Hauser was an actor the son of Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dwight Hauser.

Hauser's parents divorced in 1977, when he was two years old. According to him, at roughly fifteen, he first met his father after years of separation. His father took him in for a year and taught him about auditioning. Prior to that, his mother had moved Hauser and his half-brother and sisters from Santa Barbara to Oregon to Florida and then back to Santa Barbara within a 12-year-span. At the time, he participated heavily in sports, but half-heartedly pursued school.

He was admitted to a talent summer camp in New England, then won the leading role of the stage play named Dark of the Moon, which earned him standing ovations for his performance. At 16 years old he decided to leave high school to try to break into acting.

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. A role in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused also starring Affleck came along subsequently. In 1995, Hauser played the role of the leader of the campus skinheads in the John Singleton film Higher Learning. Hauser would later re-team with Affleck and Damon when they appeared together in Good Will Hunting (1997). In 2000 he played William J. Johns in Pitch Black and voiced the character in the prequel video game.

In 2002, he played a American prisoner-of-war in Hart's War with Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell. Then in 2003, he played a Navy SEAL in Tears of the Sun alongside Bruce Willis. He also appeared as a mob boss in 2 Fast 2 Furious. He has since had several leading roles in Hollywood films, including the Mel Gibsonproduced Paparazzi and The Cave.

In 2007, he starred with Anthony Anderson in the FOX series K-Ville. That same year, Hauser starred in The Stone Angel adapted from a novel by Margaret Laurence. The film played in various festival circles and had a limited release in Canadian theaters in May 2008. 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.

Cole acted in 22 episodes of Chase in 2010, and spent 2014- 2017 on the tv series Gogue, as well as staring in The Lizzie Borden Chronicles in 2015. It was 2019 when he appeared on Yellowstone, with his starring role as Rip Wheeler.

Hauser's wife is former actress and photographer Cynthia Daniel, who played Elizabeth Wakefield in the TV series adaptation of Francine Pascal's hit novel series Sweet Valley High alongside her twin sister Brittany Daniel.

Hauser and Daniel have three children: son Ryland (2004); son Colt (2008); and daughter Steely Rose (2013).