Kimberly J. Brown On Halloweentown’s Legacy, Shares The place Marnie Would Be In the present day (Unique)

It has been over 25 years for the reason that first Halloweentown hit Disney Channel — and Marnie Piper herself, Kimberly J. Brown, nonetheless will get stopped on the road, with excited followers reciting quotes from the late ’90s and early 2000s TV films, and asking her “every single day” if there’ll ever be one other movie.

Whereas selling her partnership with STEM insect repellant in an interview with TooFab, the 39-year-old former youngster star mirrored on the franchise’s legacy, and the way Disney Channel Unique Motion pictures are nonetheless liked immediately.

“I’m so honored,” Brown mentioned of the franchise’s legacy. “We had been simply presupposed to make one Halloweentown film again within the day. Folks ask me on a regular basis, ‘Was there a plan?’ ‘No, we had been making one film.’ Disney Channel was very younger and wasn’t in each family but. It has been so superb to get to look at the film develop and the channel develop over time. It is really due largely to the superb followers. They’ve liked and embraced the films so onerous over time.”

“We obtained to do sequels. Now they’re on Disney+. I meet generations of households on a regular basis — grandmothers and daughters exhibiting their youngsters. It is such an honor to be part of individuals’s traditions that manner. We might’ve by no means imagined that the films would nonetheless maintain a spot within the season on this manner. It is actually simply so superb.”

At 13, Brown was forged as teen witch Marnie Piper in Hallloweentown, with the late Debbie Reynolds starring as her grandmother, Aggie. She reprised her function in Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge (2001), throughout which she met her now-husband Daniel Kountz, and Halloweentown Excessive (2004).

Brown took a glance again at when she was first forged in Halloweentown, and recalled a few of her fondest members working with Reynolds, who handed away in 2016.

“I’ve liked Halloween since I used to be a child, so I used to be really so thrilled. Particularly then — now supernatural, witches and a lot of these matters are seen extra in scripted TV films — not a lot then, so it was actually distinctive and particular. Like, ‘I get to learn for a teenage witch?'” she mentioned. “As a child, like, Oh my god, to get to faux to try this was additional thrilling to me. And with the manufacturing design of every thing, it actually felt at occasions like we had been some place else, like in a Halloweentown. Simply leaning into that in my childhood creativeness, it was simply thrilling to me to get to get pleasure from it personally in a approach to and do the work.”

As for starring alongside Reynolds, Brown mentioned it was “really an additional particular privilege.”

“You hear such a legend goes to play your grandma and you do not know how it will be. She was simply the nicest, kindest, funniest — I imply bawdy humorousness — every thing. We had one of the best time. She at all times handled me as a peer, all of us youngsters, even after we had been younger. She actually needed to impart as a lot knowledge as she might.”

The actress mentioned she “wished [she] might have walked round with a tape recorder” to file “every thing” Reynolds mentioned.

“She instructed so many tales, and also you assume you are going to keep in mind them. … You grow old, and your reminiscence does not work in addition to you need it to,” she instructed TooFab. “I want I had simply recorded every thing as a result of every thing was so wealthy and stuffed with historical past. She was the very best.”

“Her favourite approach to introduce herself to followers [who] would collect round set, she would stroll over and say: Hey, I am Princess Leia’s mother,” Brown added, referring to Reynolds’ late daughter, Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher. “The group would get a kick out of it! They liked it.”

Brown additionally shared the place she thinks Marie can be immediately, so a few years later.

“I believe she would’ve at all times needed to proceed in a progressive [way], like, let’s take steps ahead, and do every kind of recent issues,” she mentioned. “I believe she would both be mayor, or operating for mayor, or in some type of management place, perhaps educating a brand new class of witches or one thing too,” she mentioned. “I really feel like she can be wanting to take a seat in that seat for Halloweentown and be in cost in that manner. I believe she would love that.”

And in immediately’s age of reboots and revivals, Brown revealed that she’s “completely” all the way down to do one other movie sometime.

“I believe there [are] a ton of potentialities of the place Marnie and the fam may very well be now. Disney is aware of I am all the way down to do one other,” she instructed TooFab. “It is as much as them to make that call. Actually, followers ask me every single day — messages, in-person, every thing. So yeah, we’d all like to do one other one.”

In the meantime, Brown additionally opened up about her relationship with Kountz. The 2 shared the display collectively in Halloweentown II, however did not reconnect till years later in 2016 and started courting. The couple introduced their engagement in 2022 and tied the knot in April.

And whereas they’ve been collectively for a very long time now, followers who had been unaware nonetheless get stunned frequently once they see them on social media, which Brown mentioned is “the best factor.”

“We might’ve by no means imagined the superb response and assist that we have gotten again from the followers after we first made it public,” she instructed TooFab. “There [are] nonetheless individuals until today — and now we have been collectively for eight years — [who] will see a submit and be like, ‘Oh my god! Are you collectively?’ And that is nonetheless a lot enjoyable. So yeah, it has been actually unimaginable to get to share on this with the followers a bit, too, and we’re so touched at their response over time. It is actually superb.”

As for what she’s loved most about married life up to now, Brown mentioned she and Koutz love that they’ll formally check with themselves as “husband and spouse.”

“We could not wait to try this, and we type of cheated a bit of bit beforehand and would reference one another as that,” she shared. “We simply love that. I do not know. There’s one thing so official about attending to name him my husband now as an alternative of my fiancé. That is been an surprising little enjoyable half about it.”

In the meantime, Brown additionally spoke to TooFab about her partnership with STEM, together with a few of her high ideas and hacks for prepping and adorning for Halloween whereas additionally holding the bugs away.

Whereas she mentioned that she likes “faux bugs for décor” as a result of they add to the “spookiness,” she is not a fan of the “actual ones” — and now we have to agree.

“Over time with of adorning with the enjoyable issues with fall florals and jack-o-lanterns, issues like hay bales, individuals do not understand that these sorts of décor can encourage the true creepy-crawlers. So, amongst my ideas, I believe it is actually essential to have merchandise like STEM Kills Ants Roaches and Spiders spray as a result of it helps you handle the true creepy crawlers. It is to be used each for indoors and for open air which is good. I used to be much more enthusiastic about this partnership as a result of they’re doing their enjoyable Halloween promotion,” she mentioned, including that followers can go to stembugout.com and “take an image of your faux creepy crawlers,” and “it can magically flip into a reduction code.”

Brown mentioned she likes that the merchandise are made with important oils so that they’re secure to make use of round pets, particularly Luna, her Goldendoodle.

See extra from Brown within the full interview the highest of this submit!