Erica Leerhsen was born February 14, 1976 in New York City, New York, where she was raised along with her two sisters, Nora and Debbie. She is the daughter of Barbara and Charles Leerhsen, a longtime editor of celebrity publication US Magazine (which became US Weekly in March 2000). She attended St. Augustine’s School and Ossining High School (where she sang in the choir) and graduated from Boston University College of Fine Arts in 1998. She earned B.F.A (summa cum laude) in acting the same year.
After graduation, Erica’s first role was as Sarah in a 1999 short film Junior Creative (2000), which received several good reviews. During its production, she got the lead role of a practicing witch in the controversial Horror sequel Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000), though she originally auditioned for the part that eventually went to Kim Director. She went to the audition with short blond hair, and, as director Joe Berlinger described it, “completely Gothed-out”, but ultimately was given the role of Erica. It was Berlinger who decided to make her character a long-haired redhead. Following Blair Witch 2, she appeared in the third season of The Sopranos (1999), where she played a lesbian tennis instructor who falls for Drea de Matteo’s character. She would also have part in the well-acclaimed TV show The Guardian (2001), where her character got written out after several episodes. In the same year she had a supporting role in Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002). Erica was honored with the title “Arrow in the Head’s Mistress of the Year 2003”. That year saw the release of the very successful Horror remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), in which she had a prominent role as one of the doomed teens. During her screen test for the film, her screams were so loud that people on other floors of the building called the police to report that a young woman was being attacked. The same year she returned to acting on television with a guest appearance on Alias (2001), and then reunited with Allen in his new film, Anything Else (2003). In 2004, Erica starred in an independent Thriller The Warrior Class (2007), where she played Anson Mount’s love interest. Months later, she started acting in theaters, and appeared in Allen’s ‘A Second Hand Memory’, which attracted attention from a wider adult audience and received good reviews. A year later, Erica starred in an independently-made Toronto Film Festival-smash Little Athens (2005), had a guest appearance on Jennifer Love Hewitt’s television show Ghost Whisperer (2005), and starred in Mozart and the Whale (2005).
The year 2006 opened with Erica’s guest appearance on CSI: Miami (2002). Shortly after she was landed a starring role in the well-acclaimed sequel Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), where she did a lot of her own stunts. Before filming Wrong Turn 2, she shot a Horror/Thriller Living Hell (2008), and starred in an independent Thriller film Lonely Joe (2009), as well as a lead in a Horror film Slaughter (2009/I), which is set to film in late 2008.
She lives in Los Angeles.
