There’s a multitude of factors why Hazbin Hotel became Prime Video’s biggest worldwide debut for a new animated series. An particularly major 1, even so? That voice cast. Creator Vivienne Medrano and her group hit it major casting just about every single character in the show, but there’s 1 in certain that is a staggeringly great match Erika Henningsenis Charlie Morningstar.

Hazbin Hotel is largely set in Hell exactly where Henningsen’s Charlie, the daughter of Lucifer (voiced by Jeremy Jordan), is fed up with Heaven’s remedy of the souls in Hell. Due to overpopulation, after a year, an army of angels led by Adam (Alex Brightman) swoop down from Heaven and exterminate as several sinners as attainable. In an work to save her people today and give them the second possibility she thinks they deserve, Charlie creates the Hazbin Hotel, a spot exactly where sinners can be rehabilitated and then ascend to Heaven.

In celebration of Hazbin Hotel Season 1’s epic run on Prime Video, a run that sparked an massive diehard fanbase and deserves some significant Emmy season enjoy, Henningsen joined me for a Collider Ladies Night chat to revisit her road to Hazbin, to talk about her practical experience bringing Charlie to screen, and to tease what the future holds for the character.

Hazbin Hotel

In an try to uncover a non-violent option for lowering Hell’s overpopulation, the daughter of Lucifer opens a rehabilitation hotel that delivers a group of misfit demons a possibility at redemption.

Creator

Vivienne Medrano

Cast

Erika Henningsen , Christian Borle , Alex Brightman , Amir Talai

I was fully taken by the story and Henningsen’s functionality in Hazbin Hotel although watching it for the very first time, but I also couldn’t quit asking yourself, “How? How is a human capable of singing like this?” Even even though it is a bit awkward to insist a person talk about how talented they are, I had to express the sentiment to Henningsen for the duration of our conversation, and asked if she could recognize that subsequent-level potential herself. Here’s what she mentioned:

“This is not fake humility, like, ‘Oh my god, no.’ I’m conscious that I can sing. I’m grateful that people today have asked me to sing. I nevertheless really feel like at any second it can all be taken away. I never know. To me, the issue that tends to make me go, ‘Oh, shit,’ is when I have that response of … ‘

I
have to be the 1 who gets to sing this for the reason that I really feel anything when I hear the demo or when I hear the recording. I want
my
voice to be the 1 who shares this with the planet.
’ That’s the issue that occurs. Not for the reason that I’m like, ‘I sound so amazing,” [laughs] but because if it hits something in here, I’m like, ‘I need to let it out. I need to do it and let people hear it from me.’ It’s a cathartic cycle, I feel.”

Erika Henningsen Is Charlie Morningstar

That certain compass led Henningsen to a pitch great pairing — her voice with the character of Charlie Morningstar.

“I am happy to hear you say that, and that is very affirming because when I got our Episode 1, it was the first time I’d heard any of the music. Sam [Haft] and Andrew [Underberg], who wrote the songs, I had never talked to them, we had never met before, and they gave me this song, and I just said, ‘This is everything I’ve ever wanted to do in an “I Want” song,’ — like a classic introduction to your major character — for the reason that, yes, I appreciate performing the sort of enjoyable, Disney stuff, but I enjoy that I get to drop an F-bomb at the finish. I enjoy that she’s feisty and I enjoy that she’s aggressive. It’s just been so a great deal enjoyable. Joyfully when I stroll in to record something for Charlie now, it feels like just jumping into a second skin, so to speak.”

It’s a lot more than Henningsen just getting the excellent voice actor for a character like Charlie. You can commit mere minutes with Henningsen and know, she is Charlie. They each have the similar power, and an infectious enthusiasm that comes along with it. But, the connection also runs a bit deeper than that. Here’s what Henningsen pinpointed when asked for the moment when she realized how related she was to her character:

“It’s a weird moment for the reason that it really is really the antithesis of what she is most of the time, but the explanation I enjoy it is when she says, ‘Fuck you, Susan, you old bitch,’ I enjoy that for the reason that I will not flip till I am pushed, and when I am pushed, people today are like, ‘She’s so good and then she mentioned
that
.’ But it really is that issue that I think so deeply about, just girls in positions of not getting taken seriously. I really feel that so deeply as a human getting, as a young female, as a
good
female in the planet.
I feel kindness, a lot of instances, gets mistaken for stupidity or naiveté, and I’m a definitely major believer that kindness is a superpower and treating people today that way is really not weak, but at times the strongest issue you can do.
And when it really is taken benefit of, and when people today mess with it — I’m receiving heated saying this, but this is what I have in widespread with Charlie — is like, ‘Don’t mess with that. Don’t underestimate the power of that.’”

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The line, “Fuck you, Susan, you old bitch,” is a rather amusing beat in Episode 7, “Hello Rosie!,” but there is also some significant weight to it as effectively. Henningsen continued:

“It’s super funny, but for me,
it clocked anything so deep in my memory of getting a 14-year-old kid getting bullied and not saying something, and then lastly standing up for myself, and the energy that comes with that
. Again, I know it really is a joke in that episode, but the explanation people today bear in mind it is for the reason that it speaks to anything that I feel a lot of girls, and a lot of good girls, just good young people today in basic go via — receiving pushed to our limit. Getting pushed to the expansion of our kindness can bring out that issue of, ‘No, let me stand my ground and don’t mess with me just because I happen to be nice or kind or whatever.’ And that is my fucking favored issue about Charlie. I enjoy that about her so a great deal. And it is inspiring to me for the reason that I will not usually speak up for myself.
I will not usually ask for what I want in this planet or what I want
from
this planet, and I feel Charlie does do that in definitely clear approaches when she is pushed to the limit of her kindness.
That, for me, was such a cool moment. I was like, ‘I wish I could have said that to certain people in my life,’ and I didn’t. I would just sort of back away, and receiving to play Charlie has sort of unleashed the awareness of that issue inside me, which is like, ‘No, you can.’
Maybe
you should not say, ‘Fuck you, you old bitch,’ but you can stand up for your self. [Laughs]”

Erika Henningsen Teases a Favorite ‘Hazbin Hotel’ Season 2 Song

Given how Henningsen teases a certain song in Hazbin Hotel Season 2, it appears Charlie will preserve forging forward down that path. As Charlie continues to stand up for herself and her people today, it seems it’ll open the door to a lot more grit in her songs. Here’s how Henningsen place it:

“
There is a song in Season 2 that I can not inform you exactly where it is or what it is, but it really is sort of like the dark evening of the soul aspect of the hero’s journey
, which we brushed the surface of that in Season 1, but we [really] go there in Season 2. And
the way it landed in my voice, it really is the way I’ve usually wanted to be asked to sing
. I sound like, once again, a woodland creature when I’m speaking to you on this mic, so it really is not what is normally asked of me. But Sam and Andrew wrote this song, and I was like, ‘Is this what I think this moment is vocally?’ And they mentioned, ‘Yes. What your instinct is telling you of what this is …’ I bear in mind the very first time I heard Lady Gaga sing generally, and getting like, ‘What is that noise? What is coming from her body? What is that?’ And getting like, ‘People sing like that? I want to sing like that.’ And we get a
tiny
taste of that, and I’m excited. I
hope
there is a lot more of that for Charlie, and for definitely anyone, that kind of grit.”

Eager to hear even a lot more from Henningsen on lessons discovered although studying at University of Michigan, what it was like producing her Broadway debut, who she thinks Charlie will advantage from spending a lot more time with in Hazbin Hotel Season 2, and a lot more? Check out our complete 50-minute interview in the video at the best of this short article, or you can listen to the conversation in podcast kind beneath:

Hazbin Hotel Season 1is offered to stream on Prime Video.

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