INTERVIEW: Brandon Rogers Talks Friendship, Chaos, And Queer Joy In ‘Helluva Boss’
- Sarah Angelo-Haight
- Oct 29
- 7 min read
On September 10, the cult YouTube series Helluva Boss made the move from being a Patreon-funded passion project created by Vivianne Medrano to a powerhouse series on Prime Video. Both seasons that were released on YouTube are now available on Prime Video, along with a brand-new pilot episode that gives the series a stronger opening.
Helluva Boss takes place in Hell and follows a troupe of imps whose job is to kill people in the mortal world at the behest of sinners already in Hell who want revenge on someone still alive. Leading the team is Blitzo (the O is silent), a former circus clown whose ambitious but self-sabotaging antics are brought to chaotic life by Brandon Rogers, who not only voices the character, but is one of the writers of the series.
I spoke with Brandon about the process of becoming involved with two hit shows (he also voices Katie Killjoy in the Medrano-created series Hazbin Hotel, the second season of which premiered on Prime Video on October 29), the collaborative nature of the production, and the power of love, even in Hell.
Sarah: Can we start by talking a little bit about the process and how that [Helluva Boss moving to Prime Video] happened?
Brandon Rogers: Viv [Medrano] just reached out to me a long time ago and said, “I’m working on this pilot.” It wasn’t even a series. It was, “I’m doing a short. Do you wanna be in it? Do you wanna write for it?” I said sure.
At that time, I was saying yes - I mean, I still say yes to everything - but having someone, an animator, who says, “Here’s this character I want you to play in a video.” Like, yeah, he looks cool, I love his white hair and his little goat legs. Then she said, “Oh no, that’s Moxxie. You’re the tall, lanky, dumb-looking one with the big mouth.” And I said, “Oh, okay. Well, I like him too. He’s great.”
So then, we started writing it in a diner together, season one. We still sometimes go back and write at that diner to keep it feeling not corporate, you know? To keep it feeling authentic, like a school project. It felt like some after-school shit. She brought her laptop, and we would both write, and she was the scribe and would write everything down while we were eating our chicken nuggets and just going crazy.
Then, eventually, Hazbin [Hotel] popped off, and then Helluva [Boss] popped off with it. Both shows, luckily, found an audience. It’s very rare that you have two shows do successfully at the same time. Viv, an animator in her twenties, made what I’ve never seen anyone in Hollywood do, and that’s just get two hit shows, pop-pop right out the puss, back-to-back at the same time. Unbelievable.
So anyway, it’s been a wild ride. I’m very lucky that she got into bed with Amazon. No one slept with anyone for this deal, that’s not what I mean, but I’m glad that she did. It’s changed all of our lives.
The cast, I’m thirty-fucking-seven, I didn’t think I’d be getting a new family this late in my life, I guess. A new family from out of nowhere too. I was not expecting, when I met this cast, that I’d be joined at the hip with these people for the foreseeable future. And I’m very glad that I did.
It’s really the first show that I’ve been in that wasn’t one of my own that has had no drama. No drama! Usually there’s always one person in every cast that’s a little… you know. There’s always that one person where you’re like, [groans], but it’s so nice because everyone in this cast just doesn’t give a shit. They’re chill. No one’s uptight about anything, and it makes for a really conducive, creative atmosphere.
Sarah: The cool thing about it is you know where it came from. It’s always felt very collaborative. It comes across to the audience as a labor of love.
Brandon Rogers: Absolutely. You can attribute that to Viv’s ability to curate talent. A lot of people don’t acknowledge that about her, but the show is great because of the people who make it, and those people were brought together by Viv. She knew who she needed to make this dish.
She brought in Sam Haft, who does all our music; Richard Horvitz, who is vocal directing; everyone. And the animation is some of the best I’ve ever seen. Mind-blowing. Especially in season two, it just gets better and better. She’s created a team of people that are just powers of nature.
Sarah: With getting a wider audience on Amazon for Helluva Boss, what are you most excited for them to see now that it’s coming off YouTube?
Brandon Rogers: First, I’m excited that they get to start with a proper pilot. It’s not every day a successful show gets the opportunity to recreate a pilot that it’s kind of evolved from. It’s nice to go back and say, “No, actually, if we’re getting a new audience, this is the pilot we want them to start with.”
It’s more representative of the characters as they’ve become, and obviously of the animation quality. It’s season-three-level animation at our pilot.
Throughout seasons one and two, there were little things, every creator feels this, where you think, “I wish I could have tweaked this, I wish I could have fixed that.” So we got to go back and fix a lot of the little things we wished were tighter or better.
Overall, it’s not just the pilot, the show got a little bit of a makeover. It got its drawers dropped! We get to see the show’s nudity and violence a little more.
Sarah: Fantastic.
Brandon Rogers: Yeah, that’s what we’re there for! That’s why I love voice acting: It’s the only kind of acting you don’t need clothes to do.
Sarah: Who is your favorite Hellaverse character who is not yours?
Brandon Rogers: Probably Vox, from Hazbin Hotel. I just love his style and aesthetic. When I learned, this is no longer a spoiler, that he’s central to the plot of season two, I really got excited. He’s kind of who I was hoping would be the main thing in season one, and I’m glad he’s got a much bigger arc now.
In season one it seemed like the Vee’s were going to take a bigger role, so I was happy to see that come true.
I’ve seen at least the first five episodes of season two. It’s a work of art. I hate sucking Hazbin’s dick on a Helluva interview. It’s so fucking good.
Sarah: They’re so interconnected at this point.
Brandon Rogers: They are, yeah! And now that the cast has been going to cons together, I feel very joined at the hip with them too. It’s nice, because when you watch the show, you feel more connected since your friends are the voices you hear.
Viv writes characters around the voice actors. She builds them that way, so a lot of the people in Hazbin and Helluva are their characters. It’s fun. The show is just one of the most authentic things ever. The actors, the story, it all comes from people who relate to it.
Sarah: One more question, and it kind of involves Hazbin, particularly as it relates to Charlie’s mission. One of the big draws of Helluva Boss is the relationships between all the characters. The demons, sinners, [and] imps are all reaching for connection and love. Can you speak to how that’s evolved, and if we’ll see more of that in Helluva Boss?
Brandon Rogers: Oh god, yeah. The theme of Hazbin, specifically Charlie trying to redeem people, is so applicable. A lot of people feel like they’re not savable, like they’re too far gone down a road they can’t come back from.
What better setting than Hell to have a show about “it’s not too late”? If anything’s too late, it’s you burning in Hell. It’s cool, it inspires people to think that maybe even those sentenced to eternal punishment can still be saved.
With Helluva Boss, it’s not as grand in scale, it focuses deeply on the relationships between characters. In that sense, Helluva is the more human show. It focuses on things we all relate to.
The characters are almost entirely queer, but what I love is that it’s not about that. They just happen to be queer. Everyone can relate to the things they go through. I’m so tired of every time a gay character’s on screen, they have to say, “My boyfriend’s waiting for me outside.” Like, okay, the writers had to tell us they’re gay. Can’t it just be part of them being a person?
Not every straight character has to go on screen and establish that they’re straight or talk about the hardship of being straight, they just go through shit without thinking about their sexuality. That’s what I love about Helluva Boss. It feels nice playing a queer character that’s not even talked about. That’s how I want people to see me. That's how a lot of us in the show want to be seen.
We don’t want to be defined by something we didn’t choose. We want to be defined by the things we do choose, the decisions we make. I think that’s what draws people to Helluva Boss: that sense that these people are just themselves. It isn’t about who they love, it’s about how they grow together.
Sarah: I’m absolutely blown away by what I’ve seen so far. I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Brandon Rogers: Thank you! I’m really looking forward to people seeing more of it. And thank you for watching it. I’m very lucky to be selling something I believe in. I really believe in this show, and it’s nice to be on something that I have total faith in. I hope you enjoy season three.
Helluva Boss is now streaming on Prime Video.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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