Holly Marie Combs - Piper Halliwell

Holly Marie Combs, popular with audiences for her role as teen-aged Kimberly Brock on the Emmy Award-winning series Picket Fences, returned to series television in Charmed, starring as Piper Halliwell.

Combs was born in San Diego, Calif., and moved with her family to New York when she was 8 years old. Following her mother's footsteps as an aspiring actress, she began her career working in television commercials and print advertisements at age 10. She won her first movie role by 13, playing the daughter of Don Johnson and Susan Sarandon in the feature film Sweet Hearts Dance.

At 18, Combs got her big break starring for four seasons as the insightful daughter of parents played by Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker in the critically acclaimed drama Picket Fences. In television movies, she has played an impressive range of starring roles, including the daughter of a murdered heiress in the fact-based Daughters, killer Diane Zamora in Love's Deadly Triangle: The Texas Cadet Murder and a rape victim in Sins of Silence. Most recently, Combs starred opposite Charisma Carpenter in the ABC Family Network comedy See Jane Date, in which she portrayed a smalltime actress who makes it big because of her affair with an A-list actor.

In feature films, Combs appeared in Steven Soderbergh's remake of Ocean's Eleven opposite George Clooney and Brad Pitt, in which she played herself along with The WB's stars Barry Watson and Joshua Jackson. She also played a young girl propositioned by a wheelchair-bound Tom Cruise in the 1989 Vietnam War saga Born on the Fourth of July. Additional big-screen credits include Chain of Desire with Malcolm McDowell and Linda Fiorentino and Simple Men.

Offscreen, Combs lives in Los Angeles, where she enjoys gardening and horseback riding.

Spelling it out: "I don't believe in magic the way the show believes in magic. I believe in more mystical things and intuition. I believe in positive thinking, which is basically what spells are - repeated positive thinking."

Once upon a time... "When I was in high school, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Then I got a movie and that went out the window."

Veggin' out: "I was a vegetarian for seven years. I'm not any longer. I had these terrible cravings that never went away and finally I just broke down. I had to have a cheeseburger!"

Animal addict: "I have dogs, cats, lovebirds, horses and two hamsters. One hamster only has three legs and the other's really fat."

Relatively speaking: "My little cousins absolutely love Charmed. They go to school and say, 'That's my cousin,' but of course nobody believes them. But they'll say, 'No, Piper really is my cousin!'"

Put down that rattle and step away from the diapers: "For some reason everybody on the set - except for me - thinks I should get pregnant for real. It's like they all got together and I've been nominated! Honestly, the thought of having a baby scares me!"

Going Under: "The hardest stunt I've ever done on Charmed was the episode they tried to drown me. (Laughter.) At first, being underwater was fascinating. I used to scuba dive. But it's a lot different when they put chains on you and take your oxygen away. For a second there, I actually thought they were doing away with me."

In the Doghouse: "My weekends are usually all about my animals. I have far too many of them... I have six dogs, three cats, five rabbits, three birds, a turtle, koi fish and four horses. I think that's everybody, did I cover all of the animal kingdom?"

We Are Family: "I see Alyssa more than I see my boyfriend. We are like old-time, family friends. We know everything about each other, and we've become so close we don't even have to say anything out loud in order to communicate."