Joshua Leonard on AllMovie

Joshua Leonard melded his prior indie film experience on- and off-camera and achieved unexpected fame in the low-budget horror blockbuster The Blair Witch Project (1999). After doing theater as a child, Leonard worked in production, as well as acting, in independent and experimental films in New York. Cast as the steadfast cameraman Josh in The Blair Witch Project, Leonard balanced shooting the film's 16mm footage with improvising the increasingly-eerie turn of events, along with fellow cast members Heather Donahue and Michael Williams -- according to directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez's fleeting instructions. Savvily-marketed through an Internet site as a "documentary" about an actual, lethal legend after its buzz-generating midnight debut at the Sundance Film Festival, The Blair Witch Project became an enormous summer hit, frightening audiences with its all-too-real sense of impending -- if unseen -- danger. Fans expressed relief that Leonard and his cohorts had not in fact come to their ends in the Maryland woods. After his sudden exit from The Blair Witch Project, Leonard continued working on independent films and moved to L.A.