Rei Hance

In a 2016 interview in GQ, she discussed the ongoing challenges associated with having used her birth name in The Blair Witch Project – a name she was still using at the time of the interview. The same interview revealed that she was writing for, and intended to produce, a sitcom tentatively called The High Country, based on her experiences in marijuana farming. Sometime after that interview, and before 2021, she changed her name from the original Heather Donahue to Rei Hance.

As of 2013, she was residing in Nevada City, California. At the time, she was also reported to be developing a line of herbal skin-care products.

Hance left acting in 2008 to become a medical marijuana grower. In 2011, she signed a publishing deal for her debut book Growgirl, about her time as a marijuana grower, which was released on January 5, 2012 under the Heather Donahue name by Gotham Books.

In 2002, she had a co-starring role in the science fiction miniseries Taken, for which she was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television. The same year, she appeared in an array of short films and televised films, such as The Walking Hack of Asbury Park, New Suit and The Big Time. Her last acting role was in the 2008 direct-to-DVD horror film The Morgue.

In 2001, she appeared in the independent film Seven and a Match and in the short film The Velvet Tigress, again credited as Donahue.

Her first screen appearance, and her best known role, is in the 1999 found-footage horror film The Blair Witch Project. She and the two other main cast members, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard, used their birth names as their character names for the film. She would come to regret this later in life, changing her name to Hance years after she retired from acting.

Her role in the film originated in 1997, when she read about an audition that was being advertised in Backstage magazine for actors with strong improvisational abilities, which were needed for an independent horror film. She auditioned at the Musical Theater Works in New York City and was cast in one of the three principal roles. For the role, Hance had to learn how to operate a camera, spending two days in a crash course. She said she modeled her character after a director that she once worked with, citing the character's self-assuredness when everything went as planned, and confusion during crisis. After filming, Hance and the two other leads were asked not to appear on any television shows or in any films, as the filmmakers made great advertising efforts to portray the events in the film as factual, including the distribution of flyers at festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival, asking viewers to come forward with any information about the "missing" students. The IMDb page for the film also listed the actors as "missing, presumed dead" in the first year of the film's availability. The promotion for the film was so convincing that Hance's mother received sympathy cards from people who believed that her daughter was actually dead or missing.

Hance graduated from the University of the Arts (Philadelphia) in 1995 with a BFA in theater.

Rei Hance (born Heather Donahue; December 22, 1974) is an American writer, businesswoman, and retired actress. She is known for her roles as Heather in the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project and Mary Crawford in the miniseries Taken. Hance was credited under her birth name in her acting roles and for her first book, changing it to Rei Hance sometime after 2016 and before 2021.

Hance was born on December 22, 1974, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Joan, an office manager, and James Donahue, a printer.