As Heated Rivalry sets the sport of hockey on fire, the stars and showrunner of the new Crave/HBO Max series are teasing the behind-the-scenes chemistry.
Jacob Tierney, creator of the LGBTQ sports romance, revealed that Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie clicked “quite instantly” during the audition process, as the former even told him the latter seemed like he was going “to pin me down and f*ck me.”
“Hudson was the third actor that I read with,” Storrie, who plays Ilya Rozanov, Russian-American player for the Boston Raiders, recounted to Out Magazine. “The first two I was like, ‘Okay, this is cool,’ and then Hudson came on. Jacob actually texted me directly and was like, ‘What do you think?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, Hudson, for sure.’ Instantly.”
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Williams, who stars as Ottowa-born Montreal Metros pro Shane Hollander, said, “I read with one other possible Ilya, and it was good. But something about Connor… There was an inexplicable X-factor that just felt realer than what I thought it could possibly be. And that was something. I had a quote I told Jacob, at one point, about my read with Connor in particular.”
Tierney recalled, “Hudson told me, ‘The other guy was good, but Connor felt like he was going to pin me down and f*ck me.’ … That is literally what he said. And I was like, ‘Well, I think I cast this right.’”
“They were essentially cast at the same time. It was very clear to us that we needed to find Shane and Ilya together,” added Tierney. “This show lives and dies with them, so we needed to make sure that this worked together. There are terrific actors who are in, you know… They’re just in different shows. You need to find the people who are going to be together in the same show, and that’s what the two of them had quite instantly.”
With new episodes available Fridays on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US, Heated Rivalry follows a pair of leading Major League Hockey players who harbor a secret: Away from their rivalry on the ice, they are secretly lovers who initially hide their confusing and complicated relationship from the world.
Created by Tierney and Brendan Brady from Accent Aigu Entertainment, the show was adapted from author Rachel Reid’s novels. François Arnaud, Robbie GK, Sophie Nélisse, Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova, Dylan Walsh and Christina Chang also star.