NYCC 2025: Interview with the Cast of 'Hazbin Hotel' on Season 2
Fans of KPop Demon Hunters and Queer stories should check out Hell’s hottest musical.
Hazbin Hotel is what happens when you turn sin, satire, and song into salvation. For those unfamiliar, the story follows Lucifer’s daughter, Charlie Morningstar, who owns and operates the Hazbin Hotel with her staff of friends—a place meant to reform demons and give them a chance to enter Heaven.
Created by animation and YouTube sensation Vivienne Medrano (VivziePop), this season returns with a storyline that gets into each character’s backstories, delving into the dark history of the angelic genocide of sinners by grounding its hellish themes at a look at something deeply human. It also examines the origins of fan-favorite demons such as Alastor and asks what it truly means to be “good” in a world set in the land of sinners.
Fans of the show may remember from last season how we saw the first-ever death of an angel, and the first-ever reformed demon, as Sir Pentious earned his way into heaven by sacrificing himself to save his friends, all while confessing his love for Cherri Bomb. Picking up the pieces, season 2 explores themes of mortality, morality, and the politics of fear, particularly through Vox and his fellow Vees, Valentino and Velvette; as the Vox Network riffs on media manipulation, fake news, and egomaniacal leadership—themes that resonate with the times of today.
The DeMonster sat down in a roundtable interview with fellow journalists and the cast and creators, including Krystina Alabado, Alex Brightman, Christian Borle, Lilli Cooper, Joel Perez, Amir Talai, Kimiko Glenn, Blake Roman, and series showrunner Vivienne Medrano.
In this interview, each question was crafted by different journalists at the table, but has been edited for length and organizational clarity by me.
GRAVITY is the exciting new song that’s going to catch on like hellfire.
To start, what’s coming up with your characters in season 2, and is there anything you’re most excited about?
Krystina Alabado (Cherri Bomb): Cherri Bomb had limited time in season one. She partied hard and had fun with Sir Pentious. Now we see her hanging out at the Hazbin Hotel more, and we get to see how she’s feeling about Sir Pentious after his heroic goodbye. What I like about Cherri Bomb is she really does march to the beat of her own drum, and I think she’s learning a lot as the seasons are going, so I’m curious to see where she goes…
Alex Brightman (Sir Pentious/Adam): A few things I’m pumped about are that Adam is in Season 2. Which is just exciting because I was surprised like everyone else… As for Pentious, his story was sort of the inevitable answer to the question of what happens to the end of season one: you’re in a place where you don’t know anybody, and so how do you get along without any anchors? How fast can you make a friend when you’re alone, and who do you miss?
Amir Talai (Alastor): For Alastor, it’s gonna be really fantastic to get deep into his backstory and see what he’s like as a Human in season 2. I’m excited for people to Cosplay that. I think it’s something fans have been hungry for and excited about for a while.
Blake Roman (Angel Dust): I’m excited for fans to see what Angel is like at the hotel. He’s really trying to get ingrained and is getting a lot more comfortable there. He’s got a lot of good outfits this season. I like his slumber hotel-fit.
But outside that, especially towards the end of the season… things get harder for our boy. It really reaches the zenith at the end of the season, just where you get to see how broken he is after getting so much hope and trust in himself…
(The rest of this segment is cut due to spoilers, but be sure to check out Episode 6 on November 12th to understand why!)
Kimiko Glenn (Nifty): For me. I dunno. I’m just excited. I just generally like to see Nifty in different circumstances because she is kind of quiet and a weird little blinky gremlin in the background. Then something as extreme as killing Adam happens, and you’re like… wtf?! It makes no sense, and yet it makes the most sense. I like that she has that presence always and that she’s treated like a hometown hero at the beginning. It’s really cute.
For this season, I’m also just generally excited she gets to sing. It’s wacky as shit!
Blake Roman (Angel Dust): I love when they’re like all celebrating and throwing Nifty up in the air, and you’re just like… STAB STAB STAB!
And for Team Vee? What’re you up to or excited about?
Christian Borle (Vox): Vox is leading an attempted coup against Heaven.
Lilli Cooper (Velvette): We take over… with questionable results.
Joel Perez (Valentino): We’re playing the long game.
Christian Borle (Vox): Also, I think we’re all excited to be singing a little more. The songs were amazing. And then Vox gets a cape!
Lilli Cooper (Velvette): It’s a great cape. For me, I loved being able to approach Vel again after so many years. I think it was like 3 years in between season 1 and season 2? It’s a fun challenge trying to remember how I did this. What I sounded like.
So, thoughts about the current parallels about media manipulation and what we’re seeing in reality?
Christian Borle (Vox): Viv wrote this season a long time ago, and it’s very clear that this was not meant to be a comment on what’s happening recently because, speaking for myself, I thought we had moved past this certain moment in time!
I’d never imagine we’d be back here, where we’re talking about how relevant media manipulation and brainwashing is. It speaks for itself how crazy that there’s a real-world parallel to what’s happening in season 2.
Let’s talk about fan reaction. It’s been overwhelming, to say the least, since season one. Did any of you expect this level of hype? How big would the show be?
Krystina Alabado (Cherri Bomb): I never think that about a project that I’m doing because you do it and hope people love the work. I knew that Viv had such a following with the show before we even came on board, but I could never have imagined the magnitude at which it has exploded. And my mind is blown, we’re talking about season 2 but it feels like we’ve been doing it years-and-years, but season 2 isn’t even out yet.
Vivienne Medrano (Showrunner): The saddest thing to me is they’re going to have recorded the whole show well before possibly even, like, the fourth season would air. Maybe even the third. That’s crazy to me. And that’s very sad because the idea of ending a story terrifies me, so I’m not looking forward to that, but also am because I wanna tell the story.
Alex Brightman (Sir Pentious): I would like to go really quickly on the record. I sort of did know it was going to be a big hit. I remember when I read the script and then heard the songs, as a musical theatre, there’s something that happens in the human body when we hear a song in a story, and it pushes a story forward.
As a musical theatre person, it’s just very very addictive in a way that you want more… it just does something to people who don’t even know they’re enjoying a musical! So I really had a feeling once I started recording… I think this is going to be a lot of people’s favorite thing.
Joel Perez (Valentino): For me, I stumbled upon the pilot on YouTube in 2020. I watched it, loved it, and became a fan of Vivienne. Musical theatre and religious drama? Sign me up! It’s gonna be great. Then I started watching Helluva Boss and loved that too. So when the opportunity to audition for it came up, I was like f-yeah. I was so excited to be a part of it.
I knew when it came out, there would be a lot of excitement. You just never know how audiences are going to react to it because it had so much hype, so much buzz, but (there’s always the risk) people could hate it. But I always knew there was going to be an initial excitement. I remember before the season one premiere came out, I was in Los Angeles and saw some episodes in Viv’s apartment. But seeing the animation come to life? I knew people were gonna lose their shit.
This is good!
Now Joel, you’ve talked about backlash for your portrayal of Val…
Joel Perez (Valentino): You know, I actually get a kick out of it. Here’s the thing... I’m old. I’ve been doing this for a minute… It’s good to play a character that’s so polarizing. You either love him or hate him, but you’re not gonna forget him. The show makes an interesting conversation about it, what are our hard lines? These are demons in hell down here for a reason!
I find it very interesting that people put bad behavior in a hierarchy. Cannibalism? Totally fine. Arms dealer? Great. Valentino beats up Angel Dust? HE SHOULD DIE!
I think they’re all pretty terrible. The point of the story is redemption.
Speaking of characters, Amir, Alastor gets his ego bruised a little bit at the end of Season One. What’s he look like in season two?
Amir Talai (Alastor): Outwardly, he’s certainly gonna react the way he reacts to everything… which is with a smile. I don’t think he’s gonna let on to what extent he’s hurt or what extent he’s scared. But internally, there’s a real sense that… he didn’t think this was possible.
So there is a fear and a desperation to Alastor to make sure that CANNOT happen again. I think that’s going to be an interesting part of his journey in this season. First of all, how do I get out of my deal? I know that as long as I’m under someone else’s power, I can be hurt. So how do I get out of that deal? That’s going to be interesting to see where he goes with that.
Now, what’s something you were able to do with Season 2 that you couldn’t with Season One?
Joel Perez (Valentino): I think a lot of season 1, we didn’t know who else was in the cast. We were recording in isolation. For me, personally, it was my first real job in animation in this capacity, so there was a lot of imposter syndrome. We also didn’t know what the show looked like. So having that much clearer in my brain going into season 2 made it that much more fun.
Lilli Cooper (Velvette): And now we can almost hear each other! For the most part, we never record together. We’re just speaking our lines. But knowing each other now? Knowing what we sounded like in season 1? We can hear each other in our minds what the other person’s lines would sound like, which I think informed the performances.
Does there feel something special about doing the recordings?
Kimiko Glenn (Nifty): I mean… most of mine is just grunting efforts and so just hypothetical sounds I might make in scenes. <laughs>
But I also love Richard (Hazbin Hotel’s Voice Director), just suggesting things off the top of the dome. He’s just so funny. I honestly think that line, “Sometimes I kill mother bugs in front of their children as a warning to others…” That is so specific. And that was like an iconic line!
Blake Roman (Angel Dust): I think for me it’s doing the voice again. Angel’s voice is so different than mine, and I think for that reason, it’s so fun because I feel like I can just slip into a totally different headspace.
When you’re up on stage or on TV and you get into costume with the character, there is a visceral change that sets into our minds when we finally see ourselves looking in the mirror. When I hear myself as the character, it has a similar effect.
It’s always so exciting because we have a lot of room for paraphrasing, but also, improv is a lot of what we do in these recording sessions, and I never know what I’m gonna say.
Sometimes it’s shit. There are moments when I come up with something and it’s like, “HAAA!, I’m Acing!” and there are other times Viv and Richard are like, “...Okay.” But that’s what it’s about, and I love those moments; those are the scariest but most exciting for me.
Kimiko Glenn (Nifty): It’s nice to feel safe to have bad ideas. That’s why it feels really safe.
Amir Talai (Alastor): My favorite thing is when Alastor gets to be really condescending. There’s something about being in the booth and pulling up the mic and going ‘ooo… how sad’. I don’t know, it feels silly and fun and not as taxing as some of the other shit we have to do.
Since the show’s theme is about redemption, can you talk about this subject in regard to the show? Especially in relation to today’s society and cancel culture?
Vivienne Medrano (Showrunner): It’s something that matters a lot to me. I’m a woman on the internet and I have opinions. There’s apparently nothing worse than that, or so the internet has let me know. It started in college, maybe even before, really as long as I have been creating, but people have been like that… and I’ve seen the internet culture change where people can’t get past someone’s mistakes, even mistakes as a teenager.
I always thought that was stupid.
(I’m) making a show about characters that are flawed, and have made mistakes; in fact, some of the biggest mistakes you can make as a person. It’s important to show that there are reasons for it and that there are things that led someone to it. To show the faith and love someone can get, that’s what helps them change for the better.
It’s something I’ve lived. I’ve had a really bad community I was in in terms of friends and the culture I was a part of. Then, when I moved out to LA, I had this much better support system, and since I’ve been making the show and working with amazing people like this, I’ve changed out of that person.
Making the show… It’s been almost like a healing process. I’ve lived the path of the redemption arc, and I’m still battling it myself, and I still feel like I can be better. So I feel like the themes of the show are relevant to everyone, especially to me very personally, but I feel very strongly about stories about redemption and how one mistake doesn’t define a person.
Blake Roman (Angel Dust): Look, we live in a world where people are craving simplicity and (prefer) black and white answers to ambiguity. But life has only ever been a gray thing, and we tell a very gray story, just as there’s nothing black and white about life.
I think the story calls people in to recognize that nothing is cut and dry, and to try and employ some type of paradoxical mind where you can understand two things can be true at the same time. Someone could have done a bad thing. Said a thing that made you feel a certain way.
That does not mean that person doesn’t also have good aspects or hasn’t made some good impact. I think Hazbin makes that point excellent. All these characters who are fucked up and crazy and have done crazy shit yet? You love them for it. It mirrors us with their complexities.
Amir Talai (Alastor): The reason people want to cancel things is that we want there to be consequences for bad behavior. But I think that everyone deep down knows that redemption is a more rewarding and valuable pursuit, but by far, the more difficult path to take.
So when you see rich shitbags not being held to account for something? When you want that guy to get the death penalty for cutting me off in traffic? You just want something. Someone to pay for what they’ve done.
That’s what’s so appealing about the show is that you’ve got some of the worst of the worst, and then ask ourselves, is there a way for them to be redeemed? Because if there is… maybe there is a way for that guy who cut me off in traffic, too.
If that’s the case, hypothetically, what would Alastor have to do to be redeemed?
Amir Talai (Alastor): It starts with sorry. You have to want it. You have to want it and be aware. Anyone can be redeemed, whether it’s in show or in life, but it all starts with sorry, and there’s a whole lot of steps after that…
The first two episodes of Hazbin Hotel Season 2 have just begun airing today on Prime Video. All images and assets used in this piece were provided by Prime Video, copyright Amazon MGM Studios.
Christian Angeles is a writer and entertainment journalist with nearly a decade of experience covering comics, video games, and digital media. He was senior editor at The Beat during its Eisner Award–winning year and also served as managing editor of The Workprint. Outside of journalism, he writes comics and books.
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