With a fabled witch on her trail, student filmmaker Heather Donahue decides to film herself. She’s been lost in the woods for days. As tears stream down her face, she drops to her knees in utter defeat. Snot pours out of her flaring nostrils. In a tight closeup, the petrified girl delivers her last will and testament—apologizing to her friends, family, and the co-producers of her film.
Shot for $20,000, The Blair Witch Project went on to gross close to $250 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable films of all time. It generated massive buzz thanks to a groundbreaking Internet campaign launched by distributor Artisan, hinting that the 1999 movie, allegedly “found footage” shot in 1994, was a record of real events.
“They hid us,” said Donahue in an interview with The Daily Beast. “It was hard because it was my real first and last name that was used. People would seem disappointed that I was alive, and because I was alive, asked if I would please give them their money back. That can kind of wear on you after a while!”
Less than a decade after Blair Witch—and gracing the cover of Newsweek magazine—Donahue was stuck in a little house in the woods once more. This time, however, the only demons chasing her were her own. And it wasn’t a student film that summoned her to the black, bear-infested woods of Northern California; she was there to grow high-grade marijuana. Donahue chronicles her epic journey from Hollywood red carpets to tending marijuana stalks in her memoir, Growgirl: How My Life After the Blair Witch Went to Pot.
Hollywood wasn’t kind to Donahue. Like many horror-movie ingénues before her, she struggled to break free from being “the girl from Blair Witch.”
“I was never the beautiful one,” Donahue told The Daily Beast. “I was never going to be that starlet. My best bet was to become a character actress. I was reading for a lot of best-friend roles, and I didn’t find it very satisfying. I felt I could do something more.”
During a promotional tour for one of these “best-friend roles,” in the 2000 comedy Boys and Girls opposite Freddie Prinze Jr., Donahue stopped by The Daily Show. Just prior to taping, however, she says flacks from distributor Miramax tried coaching her, telling the outspoken actress to dumb herself down during the segment. The straw that broke the camel's back, however, came while shooting the 2008 direct-to-DVD horror movie, The Morgue. During the film’s insane finale, Donahue’s character endured what she describes as “death by mock fellatio.”
“In order to save the day, I had to siphon gasoline out of a car, which involved me sucking it out of a tube,” said Donahue. “With apple juice dribbling down my face as I was choking on this alleged gasoline, I was laying there and thinking to myself, ‘God, is this really how I want to spend the rest of my life?’”
Tired of acting and the Los Angeles scene—and recently single after a 10-year relationship ended—Donahue held what she calls “The Great Purge,” burning her expensive lingerie and other L.A. mementos, and even gifting the flannel shirt she wore in Blair Witch to a local homeless man. It ended up in the parking lot of an abandoned liquor store the next day.
“I wanted total renewal, and I knew that unless I got rid of everything, I wouldn’t be truly open to whatever was going to come next,” said Donahue. “I wanted to empty my cup so it could be filled with something more delicious.”
And that special something was high-grade marijuana. After falling for a smooth-talking grower named Judah during a silent-meditation retreat, Donahue moved out of L.A. and into his marijuana-growing community called “Nuggettown.” There, she became Judah’s “pot wife”—a role consisting primarily of hot tubbing, nurturing his child (from a previous relationship), tending to the veggie garden, befriending the rest of the growers—called “The Community”—and, of course, smoking plenty of spliffs. But the role of “pot wife” soon lost its luster.
“I have really mixed feelings about the hippie lifestyle,” said Donahue. “Part of me feels the intention is so right; of course we should be taking responsibility for what we eat and take care of each other. But because of the ‘pot wife’ element and ‘man’s world’ side of it, that’s what kept The Community out of balance. Women were not sharing power.”
