'Hazbin Hotel' Season 2 Gives Erika Henningsen the Type of Song She's Dreamed of Doing (2024)

There’s a multitude of reasons why Hazbin Hotel became Prime Video’s largest global debut for a new animated series. An especially big one, however? That voice cast. Creator Vivienne Medrano and her team hit it big casting every single character in the show, but there’s one in particular that’s a staggeringly perfect match; Erika Henningsen is Charlie Morningstar.

Hazbin Hotel is largely set in Hell where Henningsen’s Charlie, the daughter of Lucifer (voiced by Jeremy Jordan), is fed up with Heaven’s treatment of the souls in Hell. Due to overpopulation, once a year, an army of angels led by Adam (Alex Brightman) swoop down from Heaven and exterminate as many sinners as possible. In an effort to save her people and give them the second chance she thinks they deserve, Charlie creates the Hazbin Hotel, a place 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 enormous diehard fanbase and deserves some serious Emmy season love, Henningsen joined me for a Collider Ladies Night chat to revisit her road to Hazbin, to discuss her experience bringing Charlie to screen, and to tease what the future holds for the character.

Hazbin Hotel

TV-MA

In an attempt to find a non-violent alternative for reducing Hell's overpopulation, the daughter of Lucifer opens a rehabilitation hotel that offers a group of misfit demons a chance at redemption.

Creator

Vivienne Medrano

Cast

Erika Henningsen , Christian Borle , Alex Brightman , Amir Talai

Main Genre

Animation

I was completely taken by the story and Henningsen’s performance in Hazbin Hotel while watching it for the first time, but I also couldn’t stop wondering, "How? How is a human capable of singing like this?" Even though it’s a bit awkward to insist someone discuss how talented they are, I had to express the sentiment to Henningsen during our conversation, and asked if she could recognize that next-level ability herself. Here’s what she said:

“This is not fake humility, like, ‘Oh my god, no.’ I'm aware that I can sing. I'm grateful that people have asked me to sing. I still feel like at any second it can all be taken away. I don't know. To me, the thing that makes me go, ‘Oh, sh*t,’ is when I have that response of … ‘I have to be the one who gets to sing this because I feel something when I hear the demo or when I hear the recording. I want my voice to be the one who shares this with the world.’ That's the thing that happens. Not because 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 think.”

Erika Henningsen Is Charlie Morningstar

That particular compass led Henningsen to a pitch perfect 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 leading character — because, yes, I enjoy doing the sort of fun, Disney stuff, but I love that I get to drop an F-bomb at the end. I love that she's feisty and I love that she's aggressive. It's just been so much fun. Joyfully when I walk in to record anything for Charlie now, it feels like just jumping into a second skin, so to speak.”

It’s more than Henningsen just being the ideal voice actor for a character like Charlie. You can spend mere minutes with Henningsen and know, she is Charlie. They both have the same energy, 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 similar she was to her character:

"It's a weird moment because it's actually the antithesis of what she is most of the time, but the reason I love it is when she says, ‘f*ck you, Susan, you old bitch,’ I love that because I will not flip until I am pushed, and when I am pushed, people are like, ‘She's so nice and then she said that.’ But it's that thing that I believe so deeply about, just women in positions of not being taken seriously. I feel that so deeply as a human being, as a young female, as a nice female in the world. I think kindness, a lot of times, gets mistaken for stupidity or naiveté, and I'm a really big believer that kindness is a superpower and treating people that way is actually not weak, but sometimes the strongest thing you can do. And when it's taken advantage of, and when people mess with it — I'm getting heated saying this, but this is what I have in common with Charlie — is like, ‘Don't mess with that. Don't underestimate the power of that.’"

The line, "f*ck you, Susan, you old bitch," is a rather amusing beat in Episode 7, "Hello Rosie!," but there's also some serious weight to it as well. Henningsen continued:

"It's super funny, but for me, it clocked something so deep in my memory of being a 14-year-old kid being bullied and not saying anything, and then finally standing up for myself, and the power that comes with that. Again, I know it's a joke in that episode, but the reason people remember it is because it speaks to something that I think a lot of women, and a lot of nice women, just nice young people in general go through — getting pushed to our limit. Getting pushed to the expansion of our kindness can bring out that thing 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 f*cking favorite thing about Charlie. I love that about her so much. And it’s inspiring to me because I won't always speak up for myself. I won't always ask for what I want in this world or what I want from this world, and I think Charlie does do that in really clear ways 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 kind of back away, and getting to play Charlie has sort of unleashed the awareness of that thing inside me, which is like, ‘No, you can.’ Maybe you shouldn't say, ‘f*ck you, you old bitch,’ but you can stand up for yourself. [Laughs]”

Erika Henningsen Teases a Favorite 'Hazbin Hotel' Season 2 Song

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

“There is a song in Season 2 that I cannot tell you where it is or what it is, but it's kind of like the dark night of the soul part 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's the way I've always wanted to be asked to sing. I sound like, again, a woodland creature when I'm talking to you on this mic, so it's not what's usually 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 said, ‘Yes. What your instinct is telling you of what this is …’ I remember the first time I heard Lady Gaga sing basically, and being like, ‘What is that noise? What is coming from her body? What is that?’ And being like, ‘People sing like that? I want to sing like that.’ And we get a little taste of that, and I'm excited. I hope there's more of that for Charlie, and for really anybody, that type of grit.”

Eager to hear even more from Henningsen on lessons learned while studying at University of Michigan, what it was like making her Broadway debut, who she thinks Charlie will benefit from spending more time with in Hazbin Hotel Season 2, and more? Check out our full 50-minute interview in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the conversation in podcast form below:

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

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