You may know Este Haim best as one-third of the sister rock trio HAIM, but to her friends’ children — and countless others who will tune in this Halloween season — she’s going down in history as the voice behind Hallow’s Eve in Marvel’s Spidey and the Avengers: Halloween Team Up.
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“I got more calls about this than I did when [HAIM] released our first record,” she tells Billboard after a busy morning spent promoting the project in New York City. “All of my friends that have kids were just like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ I’m gonna be such a popular auntie at Christmastime.”
Her first-ever voice-acting project, the festive animated special — which premiered in late September on Disney Jr. and Disney+ — might seem like a random side quest for the eldest Haim sister, but in reality, it ties in a number of her favorite things. First of all, she’s a longtime fan of Fall Out Boy, whose frontman Patrick Stump composes the music for Marvel’s Spidey series and voiced Hallows Eve’s sidekick, Jack O’Lantern, in the Halloween crossover with Avengers.
“Speaking of being a Disney villain, part of my ‘evil’ plan was, ‘This is my way of meeting Patrick Stump,’” Este says. “And I did it. I mean, we didn’t meet in person, we met over Zoom. But that filled my cup, let me tell you. He’s so nice, and he’s so talented, and you can tell that he like really loves doing the music on this show.”
She’s also a “huge Halloween fan” in general. Usually, she and her sisters, Danielle and Alana, do a group costume, which might be more complicated this year now that Este lives in New York City while the other two are still based in Los Angeles. “We haven’t really figured it out yet,” Este says. “We’re running out of time, [but] I have faith. We’re going to figure it out.”
But most significantly, Este has been dreaming of this opportunity for a very long time. “To be honest, I wrote in my diary over 10 years ago, ‘How fun would it be to be a Marvel villain?’” she recalls. “So I voiced it to the universe, and then here we are now.”
Marvel’s Spidey and the Avengers: Halloween Team Up chronicles how Hallow’s Eve — a character taken directly from the comic books — and Jack O’Lantern’s mischievous plot to “ruin Halloween forever” by playing tricks on trick-or-treaters, according to Disney. The chaos they cause brings Spiderman to team up with Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk and attempt to save the holiday.
It also features a duet sung by Este and Stump’s characters titled “Hallows Eve Theme,” about which the former says it was easier to get in character for than you might expect. “The only thing that the producers kept saying was, ‘Este, you sound too evil … we’re not trying to scare kids,’” she says with a laugh.
“I definitely tried to get in the zone,” Este continues of how she prepared for the role. “I listened to a lot of Stevie Nicks on the way to the studio. And Ursula [from The Little Mermaid]. I listened to ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls.’”
She also shouts out Jafar from Aladdin and Scar from The Lion King as references, adding, “I just tried to get inspired by Disney villains that sing and then just the witchiest of witchy ladies, my girl Stevie Nicks.”
But while Este had no trouble leaning into Hallows Eve’s villainousness, she also sees her character as a kindred spirit in many ways. “I love how precocious she is, and I love how she’s not trying to hurt anybody necessarily, she just wants to have fun and play tricks,” the bassist explains. “All tricks, no treats. As a diabetic, [that’s] something that I hear all the time.”
That’s not to say she’s fully on the “no treats” wavelength. Her top candies, Halloween or otherwise, are Sour Punch Bites (“Not the Sour Punch Straws. Not Sour Patch Kids. No. Sour Punch Bites,” she emphasizes. “There’s a difference”) as well as peanut M&Ms and Snickers. As for her favorite spooky songs, Este loves “Season of the Witch” and Norma Tanega’s “You’re Dead,” the theme song for Hulu’s What We Do in the Shadows.
On that topic, she weighs in on Billboard‘s recent list of her good friend Taylor Swift’s most autumnal songs, shouting out Folklore‘s “August” while acknowledging the irony. “Because it’s called ‘August,’ that doesn’t count as autumnal — but it feels like autumn to me. I feel like I’ll get trolled [by Swifties]. Can I get back to you on that?” Later, she sends via email: “‘Tis the Damn Season” (from Evermore, album-mate of the HAIM-guesting “No Body, No Crime”).
Speaking of the band, Este confirms that she and her sisters are “always writing,” even though they’re more spread out locationally. “It’s a muscle that you have to flex,” she says. “Now it’s more voice notes than just, like, singing things to each other in person. We’ve always sent each other voice notes and ideas, but I think now it’s more prevalent, because we don’t get to see each other as much as we used to.”
Watch Marvel’s Spidey and the Avengers: Halloween Team Up on Disney+ and check out a clip of Este and Stump’s spooky duet below.
