Lacey Chabert, Kimberly J. Brown, and Daniel Kountz Bring Reunions and Halloweentown Magic To Haul Out The Halloween
Get ready to return to Evergreen Everscream Lane! New Halloween-obsessed neighbors inspire the residents of Evergreen Lane to heal from the past by celebrating Halloween for the first time in decades in Haul Out The Halloween. Lacey Chabert, Kimberly J. Brown, and Daniel Kountz sat down with Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado to talk all about bringing Halloween to Hallmark Channel.
Chabert may be the queen of Christmas, but she called it “so much fun” to step into a Halloween-centric story. “Although like some of our characters say in this movie, I did feel like I was cheating on Christmas,” she laughed. “I love this movie so much because it's a return to Evergreen Lane, which meant I got to have the chance to spend three weeks with this wonderful cast again. They're all such dear friends and it was so special to have the added addition of my other real life dear friends Daniel and Kimberly.”
Things become “full circle” for her character Emily who didn’t even want to celebrate Christmas in the first Haul Out The Holly. Now she’s leading the charge. “It was so special and it's really fun because we get to see this Christmas obsessed neighborhood take on Halloween, take on a new holiday. We find out why it's important for them to do this and it's actually a really sweet and sentimental reason,” said Chabert. “We also get to have a wedding at the beginning of the movie, so we see Emily and Jared (Wes Brown) step into this new chapter of their lives together.”
The Halloween festivities get a level up thanks to new additions to Evergreen Lane. Real life married couple Brown and Kountz reunite on-screen for the first time since Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge as Emily and Jared’s new neighbors. “It's so nice to be able to share our real love of Halloween with everybody as well as our characters,” said Brown. “It couldn't have been more of a checked off more boxes of a dream scenario, for sure.”
“Being husband and wife in real life and being able to play husband and wife on a movie was so much fun and not be nemesises like the first Halloweentown movies. It was nice to be on the same side,” said Kountz, with Brown saying: “Yeah, we got to join together, which is new because Marnie and Kal would never team up in Halloweentown. No, absolutely not.”
They even got to throw in a few Easter eggs for Halloweentown fans in the film. “I'm glad you spotted it,” she shared. “You'll see them kind of throughout. They're not super on the nose. You got to think along the lines of some of the adventures Marnie ran into along the way. You'll hear some familiar things too.”
In addition to acting along side her husband, Brown was grateful to join her long time friend Chabert. The two met back in 1991 in New York City and even started their careers together in Les Miserables on Broadway. The friends called it “the best” to work together. “I adore Kim so much. […] She's just the most incredible friend. I'm going to brag on you for a second,” gushed Chabert. “Kim is the friend that no matter what is going on in her own life, if you're having a day or you're having a special day, I wake up to a text from her with encouraging words. She's the friend that has helped me so much with my daughter when I've needed support. She is just like a sister. To have the chance to have her on set, which is already such a loving set with so many people that I love, but the addition of her presence there was just very, very, very special. I was thankful.”
Brown echoed her sentiment. “It's truly such a gift to be able to do the things that you love with the people that you love because there's so many more layers of trust. I remember the first day in one of our first scenes, standing as all of our characters were being introduced to each other and kind of realizing that I had my husband to my left and my best friend across from me. It really was quite a full circle moment,” she enthused. “It's such a blessing to have any work and to be able to work on something you love, but to do it with people that you've truly admired and loved is just the icing on the cake.”
What’s next for Evergreen Lane? “Valentine's Day,” said Chabert about what holiday she’d want to see the community tackle next. “We could do National Donut Day. We could do any holiday. These people know how to celebrate. So bring it on!”
Get all the tricks and treats when Haul Out The Halloween hits Hallmark Channel on October 11 and streaming on Hallmark+ the next day.
