The actress also recalls her fondest memories shooting with the late Debbie Reynolds, and shares whether she’d ever want to do another Halloweentown film, while also opening up about married life with her Halloweentown II costar, Daniel Kountz
It’s been over 25 years since the first Halloweentown hit Disney Channel — and Marnie Piper herself, Kimberly J. Brown, still gets stopped on the street, with excited fans reciting quotes from the late ’90s and early 2000s TV movies, and asking her “every day” if there will ever be another film.
While promoting her partnership with STEM insect repellant in an interview with TooFab, the 39-year-old former child star reflected on the franchise’s legacy, and how Disney Channel Original Movies are still loved today.
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Halloweentown’s Legacy
“I am so honored,” Brown said of the franchise’s legacy. “We were just supposed to make one Halloweentown movie back in the day. People ask me all the time, ‘Was there a plan?’ ‘No, we were making one movie.’ Disney Channel was very young and wasn’t in every household yet. It’s been so amazing to get to watch the movie grow and the channel grow over the years. It’s truly due in large part to the amazing fans. They have loved and embraced the movies so hard over the years.”
“We got to do sequels. Now they’re on Disney+. I meet generations of families all the time — grandmothers and daughters showing their kids. It’s such an honor to be a part of people’s traditions that way. We could’ve never imagined that the movies would still hold a place in the season in this way. It’s really just so amazing.”
At 13, Brown was cast as teen witch Marnie Piper in Hallloweentown, with the late Debbie Reynolds starring as her grandmother, Aggie. She reprised her role in Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge (2001), during which she met her now-husband Daniel Kountz, and Halloweentown High (2004).
Brown took a look back at when she was first cast in Halloweentown, and recalled some of her fondest members working with Reynolds, who passed away in 2016.
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“I have loved Halloween since I was a kid, so I was truly so thrilled. Especially then — now supernatural, witches and these types of topics are seen more in scripted TV movies — not so much then, so it was really unique and special. Like, ‘I get to read for a teenage witch?'” she said. “As a kid, like, Oh my god, to get to pretend to do that was extra exciting to me. And with the production design of everything, it really felt at times like we were somewhere else, like in a Halloweentown. Just leaning into that in my childhood imagination, it was just thrilling to me to get to enjoy it personally in a way to and do the work.”
Working with Debbie Reynolds
As for starring alongside Reynolds, Brown said it was “truly an extra special privilege.”
“You hear such a legend is going to play your grandma and you don’t know how it’s going to be. She was just the nicest, kindest, funniest — I mean bawdy sense of humor — everything. We had the best time. She always treated me as a peer, all of us kids, even when we were young. She really wanted to impart as much wisdom as she could.”
The actress said she “wished [she] could have walked around with a tape recorder” to record “everything” Reynolds said.
“She told so many stories, and you think you’re going to remember them. … You get older, and your memory doesn’t work as well as you want it to,” she told TooFab. “I wish I had just recorded everything because everything was so rich and full of history. She was the absolute best.”
“Her favorite way to introduce herself to fans [who] would gather around set, she would walk over and say: Hello, I’m Princess Leia’s mom,” Brown added, referring to Reynolds’ late daughter, Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher. “The crowd would get a kick out of it! They loved it.”
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Marnie Today & Sequel?
Brown also shared where she thinks Marie would be today, so many years later.
“I think she would’ve always wanted to continue in a progressive [way], like, let’s take steps forward, and do all kinds of new things,” she said. “I think she would either be mayor, or running for mayor, or in some kind of leadership position, maybe teaching a new class of witches or something too,” she said. “I feel like she would be wanting to sit in that seat for Halloweentown and be in charge in that way. I think she would love that.”
And in today’s age of reboots and revivals, Brown revealed that she’s “totally” down to do another film someday.
“I think there [are] a ton of possibilities of where Marnie and the fam could be now. Disney knows I’m down to do another,” she told TooFab. “It’s up to them to make that decision. Literally, fans ask me every day — messages, in-person, everything. So yeah, we would all love to do another one.”
Fan Shock Over Co-Star Marriage
Meanwhile, Brown also opened up about her relationship with Kountz. The two shared the screen together in Halloweentown II, but didn’t reconnect until years later in 2016 and began dating. The couple announced their engagement in 2022 and tied the knot in April.
And while they have been together for a long time now, fans who were unaware still get surprised regularly when they see them on social media, which Brown said is “the coolest thing.”
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“We could’ve never imagined the amazing response and support that we’ve gotten back from the fans when we first made it public,” she told TooFab. “There [are] still people till this day — and we have been together for eight years — [who] will see a post and be like, ‘Oh my god! Are you together?’ And that’s still so much fun. So yeah, it’s been really incredible to get to share in this with the fans a bit, too, and we’re so touched at their response over the years. It’s really amazing.”
As for what she’s enjoyed most about married life so far, Brown said she and Koutz love that they can officially refer to themselves as “husband and wife.”
“We couldn’t wait to do that, and we kind of cheated a little bit beforehand and would reference each other as that,” she shared. “We just love that. I don’t know. There’s something so official about getting to call him my husband now instead of my fiancé. That’s been an unexpected little fun part about it.”
Bug-Free Halloween with STEM
Meanwhile, Brown also spoke to TooFab about her partnership with STEM, including some of her top tips and hacks for prepping and decorating for Halloween while also keeping the bugs away.
While she said that she likes “fake bugs for décor” because they add to the “spookiness,” she isn’t a fan of the “real ones” — and we have to agree.
“Over the years with of decorating with the fun things with fall florals and jack-o-lanterns, things like hay bales, people don’t realize that those kinds of décor can encourage the real creepy-crawlers. So, among my tips, I think it’s really important to have products like STEM Kills Ants Roaches and Spiders spray because it helps you manage the real creepy crawlers. It’s for use both for indoors and for outdoors which is nice. I was even more excited about this partnership because they are doing their fun Halloween promotion,” she said, adding that fans can go to stembugout.com and “take a picture of your fake creepy crawlers,” and “it will magically turn into a discount code.”
Brown said she likes that the products are made with essential oils so they’re safe to use around pets, specifically Luna, her Goldendoodle.
See more from Brown in the full interview the top of this post!
