An Interview with the Winner of 'Wings of Voice' on Nathan Fielder's 'The Rehearsal' (feat. Isabella Henao)

Decoding TV

David Chen

Tv & Film, Unknown, Netflix, Tv, Television, Streaming, Recap, Hulu, Fx, Hbo, Max

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Watch the video version of this podcast.

This podcast contains SPOILERS for The Rehearsal Season 2 on HBO.

The Rehearsal Season 2 chronicles Nathan Fielder’s attempts to understand why aviation accidents happen. According to Fielder, one major factor is that pilots are unwilling to communicate candidly with each other, especially when they disagree or have bad news to deliver.

To test this theory, Fielder used his resources from The Rehearsal to create a fictional(?) aviation-themed singing competition called Wings of Voice. In this competition, pilots judged singers performances, advanced the ones they liked, and were forced to break the bad news to some contestants that they were eliminated. The idea was that by forcing them to break singers’ hearts, the process would reveal something about what it takes to be a good communicator.

I used a “(?)” next to “fictional” above because even though contestants on Wings of Voice were occasionally made the butt of the joke on The Rehearsal and the competition never aired as its own TV show, the winner of the competition still received something of value: the privilege of performing a song for HBO’s audience on national television.

Today I’m speaking with the winner of that competition, Isabella Henao. As a fellow musician, I thought Henao crushed her performance of Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life” in the culminating moments of season two. And as someone who is endlessly fascinated by how much of Fielder’s stunts are “real,” I was thrilled to get an insider’s perspective on what it’s like to go through Fielder’s shenanigans as they happen. Henao spoke with me about what it was like to go through the audition process, what contestants were actually told about what was happening, what other contestants’ thought about the whole thing, and how being on The Rehearsal changed her life.

This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity. To listen to a fuller version of the conversation, check out the podcast/video above. If you want to learn more about Isabella, check out her website.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome to a special decoding TV bonus episode.
0:03.7	Today we have an interview with a very special guest.
0:06.6	And in order to explain who our guest today is, I'm going to have to explain and spoil Nathan
0:13.7	Fielder's television show The Rehearsal on HBO.
0:16.6	So here we go, explaining what the rehearsal is.
0:19.0	The rehearsal season two chronicles Nathan F Fielder's attempts to understand why aviation accidents happen.
0:26.1	And one of the big factors, according to Fielder, is that pilots are unwilling to communicate with each other, especially when they disagree or have bad news to deliver.
0:33.7	So to test this theory, Fielder created an aviation-themed singing competition in the reality of the rehearsal called Wings of Voice.
0:42.9	In this competition, pilots would judge singers' performances and deliver bad news if they're going to be eliminated.
0:49.2	This would be a way of testing their ability to say things that were uncomfortable.
0:52.9	The winner of that competition would have the opportunity to perform a song on HBO with a live orchestra.
0:59.0	Today, I'm speaking with the winner of that competition, Isabelle Ha-Nal.
1:02.9	Isabella Now, thanks for chatting with me today at Decoding TV.
1:06.8	And thank you for having me.
1:08.0	I was so excited.
1:08.6	I watched the show while the episodes were releasing, and I was so excited. Yes, yes. I was so excited. I watched the show while the episodes were releasing and I was so excited.
1:12.7	Yes. Yes. It's so exciting to have you. So let's start by talking about how you heard about the opportunity to be on Wings of Voice.
1:22.4	Yeah. So just like most of the other people on the show, I got an email. They reached out to a bunch of us because
1:28.8	they had our information through America's Got Talent records. And ironically, they emailed my mom first.
1:34.5	You have like auditions in the past to be part of? Yeah. So I auditioned when I was like 12,
1:40.1	I think for America's Got Talent. Oh, wow. And I sang, yeah, because when I was little, I had like this, I had a belt like an adult does, which is something that kids don't have usually. And so I went and I auditioned. For those who aren't familiar with a musician lingo, what is a belt? Yeah. So belting is just a technique of singing where it just comes off a lot more full and pure compared to like when you're
2:01.2	seeing in your head voice, which is very light and airy or in your chest, which is what
	...

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