--- name: "Rei Hance" canonical: "https://film.one/person/heather-donahue" fi1m_id: "heather-donahue" imdb_id: "nm0231946" tmdb_id: 26851 wikidata_id: "Q435435" roles: ["Actor"] born: "22 December 1974" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-17T22:26:10.538669+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Rei Hance ## Identity Rei Hance - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/heather-donahue - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** heather-donahue - **IMDb ID:** nm0231946 - **TMDB ID:** 26851 - **Wikidata ID:** Q435435 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Donahue, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q435435, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0231946/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/26851 Actor. Born 22 December 1974 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 22 December 1974, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, USA - **Also known as:** Heather Donahue - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Donahue, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q435435, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0231946/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/26851 ## Streaming the US now - **HBO Max:** [*The Blair Witch Project*](https://film.one/film/the-blair-witch-project.md) (84) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Rei Hance > Heather Donahue's strength in *The Blair Witch Project* is making confidence look increasingly hard to maintain. It is an excellent performance, and her willingness to be irritating helps us believe it. Keeping the documentary going becomes hard work for Heather Donahue in *The Blair Witch Project* (1999), and she lets us see the effort. Her confidence begins to look like something she has to produce, rather than something she can rely on. She can be irritating, but that is part of what makes her convincing: she does not tidy the character's behaviour to secure our sympathy. We found her fear contagious because she made the business of keeping going look so exhausting. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez give her a particularly exposed kind of acting to do. Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams used their own names and operated the cameras themselves, with improvisation central to the performances. Her voice and breathing help sustain the tension, while handling the camera gives her another way to communicate the strain. The group's irritability helps the footage pass for a documentary, though the panic does become repetitive. A convincing display of fear can still be wearing to sit through. Her first screen role also proved to be the one she struggled to get beyond. The subsequent parts included Megan in the comedy *Boys and Girls* (2000) and Mary Crawford in the science-fiction miniseries *Taken* (2002). There were supporting film roles and guest television appearances, but the association with *Blair Witch* limited her opportunities. *The Morgue* (2008) was her final acting credit before retirement, leaving a short screen career dominated by its beginning. Some critics and audiences found the character annoying; we think her unwillingness to soften that quality is one of the performance's strengths. The gap between the documentary she intends to make and the behaviour the camera records gives us a clear measure of her slipping composure. It also gives Donahue more to play than fear, since we can see the person she wants her companions to believe in. Start with *The Blair Witch Project*, and pay attention to how hard she works to seem certain. ## Biography Heather Donahue, also known as Rei Hance, is an American retired actress and businesswoman. Born on 22 December 1974 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, she graduated from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia with a BFA in theatre in 1995. She began her career in New York stage productions before her breakthrough role as the lead in the found-footage horror film *The Blair Witch Project* (1999). She later starred in the science-fiction miniseries *Taken* (2002) and appeared in independent films and guest roles on television series including *The Outer Limits* and *It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia*. Donahue retired from acting in 2008 and legally changed her name to Rei Hance in 2020. She subsequently worked as a medical marijuana grower and writer. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, themoviedb.org.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *The Blair Witch Project* (1999), Fi1m 84, as Heather Donahue — [page](https://film.one/film/the-blair-witch-project.md) ## Complete filmography (18) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Blair Witch* (2016), as Heather (archive footage) - *The Morgue* (2008), as Nan - *Manticore* (2005), as Cpl. Keats - *It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia* (2005), series, as Stacy Corvelli - *New Suit* (2003), as Molly - *Taken* (2002), series, as Mary Crawford - *The Big Time* (2002), as Heather Donahue - *Without a Trace* (2002), series, as Linda Schmidt - *I Love 1999* (2001), as (Presenter) - *The Velvet Tigress* (2001), as Voice Over - *Seven and a Match* (2001), as Whit - *Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2* (2000), as Heather Donahue (archive footage) (uncredited) - *The Burkittsville 7* (2000), as Heather Donahue - *Boys and Girls* (2000), as Megan - *Sticks and Stones: Investigating the Blair Witch* (1999), as Heather Donahue - *The Blair Witch Project* (1999), as Heather Donahue — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/the-blair-witch-project.md) - *Curse of the Blair Witch* (1999), as Heather Donahue - *The Outer Limits* (1995), series, as Claire Linkwood ## Gallery - ![Rei Hance](https://film.one/media/person/88989/gallery-9e1389694023.png) Rei Hance — Midnight Movie Trash, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Heather_Donahue.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Notable star of The Blair Witch Project, Heather Donahue, speaking about her book Growgirl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot at the Tattere (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/88989/gallery-1a7ff2a54ee7.png) Notable star of The Blair Witch Project, Heather Donahue, speaking about her book Growgirl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot at the Tattere (2012) — economichumanrights, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/HeatherDonahue2012.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![brighter and white balance (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/88989/gallery-81c8c520f163.png) brighter and white balance (2012) — economichumanrights, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/HeatherDonahue2012_brighter.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Rei Hance](https://film.one/media/person/88989/gallery-83e834536cbe.jpg) Rei Hance — Image via TMDB - ![Rei Hance](https://film.one/media/person/88989/gallery-12820c6cd870.jpg) Rei Hance — Image via TMDB - ![Rei Hance](https://film.one/media/person/88989/gallery-01463e0aa484.jpg) Rei Hance — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/heather-donahue