Erica Leerhsen

Publicly joking that the majority of her character's cinematic fates may not bode well for her future career, young starlet Erica Leerhsen likely has little to worry about given her solid performances in such features as Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000), Woody Allen's Anything Else (2003), and the popular television drama The Guardian. In fact, quite to the contrary, she seems to have crafted quite an impressive onscreen career. A Ossining, NY, native and the daughter of U.S. Weekly executive editor Charlie Leerhsen, young Erica attended Boston University's School of Fine Arts upon graduating high school. Following impressive performances in such stage productions as The Call of the Wild and The Tempest, Leerhsen earned her B.F.A. and graduated summa cum lauda in 1998, and subsequent performances for the Gloucester Stage Company and Surf Reality soon gave way to a film career. Her role as a witchy teen Satanist in Blair Witch 2 proved so intense that, at one point during production, Leerhsen passed out after chanting an actual summoning of the "God of the Underworld." She soon poured the same intensity into roles in the TV series The Guardian, as well as Hollywood Ending and Anything Else. In 2003, Leerhsen could be spotted in the horror remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide