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The Hudson Williams I’m speaking with over Zoom can't be the same Hudson Williams that’s been dominating my FYP since Heated Rivalry premiered in late November.
It’s two days before Christmas and that endearing chaos agent must've been left back in Los Angeles where he filmed all those deeply unserious junkets with costar Connor Storrie, quashed viral beef with the cast of I Love LA, and recorded the most unhinged 20-minute skincare routine I’ve seen since “GRWM” became an acronym around 2012.
“I think I'm grasping my sanity again,” Williams tells me from Vancouver, where he’s home for the holidays following the tidal wave of press and Chateau Marmont parties that come along with starring in a massive hit like Heated Rivalry, which recently tied Breaking Bad for the top-rated TV episode on IMDB. Before the Crave Original series was picked up by HBO Max for U.S. and Australian distribution, the 24-year-old Canadian actor thought the gay hockey drama would find a “niche fan base” and maybe even garner him a respectable six-figure Instagram following. Just one month since its release, he's a breath away from one million and counting.
(While full-blown investigations have been launched into the “surprise” success of showrunner Jacob Tierney's raunchy adaption of the Game Changers series by Rachel Reid, queer romance book readers and pretty much anyone who knows what the words “Archive of Our Own” mean have been anticipating a moment like this for years.)
Dressed comfortably in a worn-out grey zip-up and beige “LA” baseball cap, it’s easier to see beyond the playful antics of a rising star soaking up the fruits of his labor. Williams is still disarmingly funny and unfiltered, but there's also a glimpse of the actor so committed to embodying Shane Hollander—a closeted hockey player in lust-then-love with his professional rival, Ilya Rozanov—that he doubts there's enough goofy footage for a full blooper reel. “I know!" he says, picking up on the surprise that must've shown on my face. "Even in the funny scenes, we were just so locked in.”
That earnest dedication to his craft clearly paid off as countless fans ditched their family Christmas festivities early this year to check in with Hollanov at Shane's remote cottage for the final installment of season one, which dropped the evening of December 25 for those of us on the West Coast.
The first time Williams read the script for episode six, he'd yet to read the book and found himself bracing for the worst. “That was the only time I had the benefit of being surprised,” Williams says. The last romance he'd watched on TV was Normal People, so he didn't have much hope for our boys. “I wasn't told there is a happy ending. I was going in blind.”
Luckily, most of his tears ended up being happy ones. In honor of the season finale, Hudson Williams spoke to Glamour about the cottage scenes that made him cry, his sudden rise to fame, and why a moment that wasn't in the books became the "closing chapter" Heated Rivalry needed before we can move on to The Long Game in season two. Oh, and he also shared the very un-Canadian profanities he shouted at François Arnaud during episode three…as a treat.
(Warning: Heated Rivalry season finale spoilers, ahead.)
Glamour: Obviously we have to start at the cottage. I love that people are starting to refer to this week as cottage week instead of Christmas.
Hudson Williams: Fuck Christmas. The cottage is the best gift. Santa couldn’t even bring it to you. It's Jacob Tierney.
I've seen a lot of TikTok’s and tweets of people being like, “How do I tell my parents I need to check out early and turn on the Heated Rivalry finale?”
That is wild to me. I just assumed people would be like, “All right, it’s Christmas. We'll watch it on the 26th.” No. People are fucking insane. I don't know if I can get behind the choice, but it means a lot.
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I also saw a post that said, “I honestly feel bad for Stranger Things because unless the Demogorgon comes to the cottage, I don’t care anymore.”
Yeah, Stranger Things can wait.
Heated Rivalry cannot. Speaking of the cottage, you mentioned in a previous interview that you cried while reading the script for episode six. There’s multiple emotional beats in this episode but what, in particular, hit you the hardest?
Yeah, well, that was the only time I had the benefit of being surprised, because I read the scripts before the book, before I knew anything. I wasn't told there is a happy ending. I was going in blind. I don't know what's gonna happen at the end of this cottage! I remember the last romance show I watched was Normal People, so I'm not exactly like, ‘This is gonna be great.’
So, I remember the first time Ilya brings up Svetlana, that upset me because I'm already reading through the eyes and POV of Hollander. So just hearing, “I could marry Svetlana,” is horrifying. That means regression. That means, ‘Oh, we're living fairytale right now, and that's reality.’ And it's also a reality I can't understand because, you know, Ilya is bisexual. Shane is…God, get the women away from Shane! So it is horrifying for him.
And then also the scene where, it's very sweet, when Shane mentions that they can start a mental health organization. I don't think Shane knows how sweet that is to Ilya. I think it kind of comes from Shane's pragmatism and he's sort of [thinking], ‘Well, this was good and Ilya will appreciate this,’ but I don't think he knows to the extent. And then, Ilya’s line, of course, “She would have loved you. Like I love you.” Ugh!
And then the final nail through the fucking skull in my eyes was the scene with Yuna. That was the scene that felt the most pointed in my upbringing. You know, Asian family…There were some stereotypes that are true, in my experience and a lot of Asian kids’ reality. Perfection, discipline, a lack of straying left and right meant a lot of old, outdated conventions and old biases. Being gay is one of them. So having that release… I didn’t know at that point if Yuna would tell him, “Okay, well, do you want to be a part of this family or not? You're not going to be talking about that again.” To the degree of which she brought him in and said, “That's okay,” really just sent me.
I read the cottage chapters after watching the screener and noticed that one-on-one scene with Yuna Hollander (Christina Chang) wasn’t in the book. Did Jacob mention why he added it in?
No, we never talked about it. That scene, to me, was Heated Rivalry's closing chapter. Like, Shane and Ilya get their ending but as a reader bringing in my own experience of what that sort of overbearing mother means and the fears that it comes along with, this is the looming anxiety that carries Shane through all those seasons, all those years. “What would my mom think? What would my dad think? Holy fuck, I am breaking their idea of this perfect little image of a hockey player I have built over these years and sort of fabricated, to a degree.’"
That was the scene I was scared about because that is the ending, you know? I think Jacob understood that and read through the lines of what the book, Heated Rivalry, was doing. With his additions of talking about Asian culture and the good and the bad with it, I think he immediately understood that this scene is necessary. It is the closing chapter.
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Speaking of moms, you brought your mom to the premiere. What did you tell your mom about the role and how is she taking it all in?
My mom is super progressive and, in that way, she is super liberal and that has never been issue at all. I think she was just excited about the quality. She quickly was like, "I want to see these scripts. It's your first time you're being offered something big, I want to read them." You know, she's crying reading these scripts as well. I think she was just very excited for me to work on something where her belief in my skill level and talent match the quality of work I was doing. And I think that kind of just blew her mind.
You’ve spoken a bit about Shane’s autism and how your father influenced your performance, which is so important because we such little representation of that on screen. Obviously, you knew that Shane’s autistic and Heated Rivalry author Rachel Reid has said he’s autistic. But does Shane know he's autistic?
No. No, Shane does not. Although autism has always existed, the idea of it being a spectrum…that conversation started to reach me in a more open, accepted way in like 2017, 2018. I kind of forget the exact dates of when our show wraps up, but the overlap would probably be nearing the end of where we leave them in Heated Rivalry. And I don't think Shane would be [having those conversations] in his social circles.
I’ve seen some viewers express that they want to see it explored further in season two and I wasn’t sure what that would look like if he doesn’t know.
He would need to go to a therapist, and Ilya is the only one in therapy in season two. And I don't think either of Shane’s parents are the type to be like, ‘There's a spectrum. You're on it.’ They just think he's driven and antisocial. To me, reading the scripts, it didn't even have to be acknowledged. I was like, 'This guy is farther along the spectrum than a lot of people.’ And I kind of saw, even how the dialog was written, how it manifests.
Sometimes autism’s portrayed in movies with quirky head movements, weird blinks, and weird inflections. And it's like, okay…? That is sometimes truthful but that's always the reach. That's always the way it's expressed. And it's like, no, sometimes it is flat affect. It's just being immobile in your seat and taking 10 seconds to move your hand to do something because you don't know what this movement looks like or means.
Sometimes it’s making eight burgers because that’s what the recipe calls for, so that’s what you have to do.
Yeah, exactly.
When people talk about your new level of fame and exposure, I keep thinking of Shane reading the fan tweets about him and Rose Landry (Sophie Nélisse) like, “Oh my god, their love is so real!” Or, “He’s carrying all her hopes and dreams!” Do you relate to Shane more now than during filming, regarding the new experiences you’re going through?
Yeah. I think getting to watch that episode retroactively is a different experience, not just for the fact of I'm watching something I did back, but also because my life has taken a different shape. But I think I always kind of knew what it would look like and the feelings that would arise from your privacy now inherently meaning a different thing and looking vastly different.
So this hasn’t hit you in a way that surprised you?
Not too much, but I did relate with it more visually watching it. Oh, yeah. People taking photos, people leaving comments, looking at those comments…Your conversation with yourself becomes sort of like an objective third person one about the [person] the media sees, and then the life you're privately living. I was like, ‘Oh, okay. Shane and I are in a similar boat.’
Is there something you want fans or members of the press to think about when we talk about you or approach you?
Everyone's been really nice so far. People have been respectful, optimistic, excited. I would say that I haven't experienced anything bad yet. Sometimes you get a Chatty Cathy who's just wanting to chat your ear off for a long time, and you're like, I gotta go, and you don't want to be rude. And sometimes you just don't have time. Don't take offense to it.
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I ask because I’m seeing a lot of concern online that you need to be protected.
I think it just comes with the territory. I truly haven't seen anything too crazy. At least, the people that I've seen where I'm like, 'Damn, that person's messed up. That is awful,' that person gets alienated quickly and [fans] kind of boycott them anyway. So there seems to be sort of a built in little political system to the media already.
But for me, I don't think it's anyone else's job but mine, to a degree, to govern myself and my relationship to it. If you're going to be taking on big projects and you're gonna be in the public eye, you’ve got to know what comes with it, and then turn your fucking phone off if you don't want to read something mean.
The only thing is, don't take videos. If you're at a public event, sure, throw the camera on, but sometimes I'll see videos of celebrities leaving a restaurant that they never wanted to be recorded at, and that always feels illegal.
I mean, I feel the same way about the casual way we film anyone. When strangers go viral because somebody else recorded them…Even when it’s nice, I hate that. I don’t want to be in your video, please.
You didn't get consent for that. Like, what are you doing?
I was also wondering if it’s easier or harder to shoot an intimate sex scene that's super intense, like in the early episodes, versus what we saw in the cottage, where everything's kind of joyful and silly and light?
There's not really a difference in difficulty. I find intimacy pretty easy, but the only thing that's hard is the acting that's going on within that. It's not the intimacy that makes it hard, but if it's meant to be playful and you're having a bad day or you're super tired, it looks like it's 8 a.m. and the sun's pouring in but it's actually 3 a.m. and it's just a bunch of lights shooting into a fake set to make it look like it's bright and sunny, and you're on your ninth coffee of the day, and you have to be giggly, that's a lot harder than if it's the end of the day and they're like, ‘Okay, this is kind of like intense,’ and you're already feeling kind of pissy and like, fuck, let’s get this over with. It's easier to be intense in that scenario.
Is that first scenario something that happened during episode six?
On this show, luckily, the vibes matched what we had to do pretty well.
I know you shot this season out of order like a film. When did the cottage scenes occur, versus when you guys started?
The cottage was the last two days of shooting. So all of episode six was the last two days, but the drive when we're in the car leaving was two weeks into the shoot. So we still had, like, three weeks of shooting left while we're shooting the drive off. Me picking Ilya up in the “It's not a Jeep, it's British, it's good in the snow” car took place, like, three weeks into shooting. So, yeah, there was still a lot of out of order to it.
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It's interesting that the cottage scenes were all shot at the end, because you got to fully build your relationship with Connor and then go into it.
That was beautiful. The last scene we shot was mine and Ilya's conversation by the fire, where he talks about his mother. And then it was, “That's a wrap.” So it was kind of a beautiful place to end.
I’d love to talk about some previous episodes if you don’t mind. What were you yelling at Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) during the fight in episode three?
That shot was so far away. I was like, I'm not sure they'll know what I'm saying but if they will, I want to go a little crazy, because I do know lip readers are pretty good at it. I said a lot that Jacob cut out because I sometimes pass the line of what is appropriate. I said a lot of, “Fuck you, go home!” I just resorted to what I see hockey players say, like, “Fuck you, pussy!” Very not PC or polite or Canadian. “Go home. You're 45 years old. Yeah, you're ancient. You're a dinosaur. Ice your knees. Go throw some Voltaren on your back, you old man. Get the cane.”
François Arnaud discusses 'Heated Rivalry' episode 5, what may come in season 2, and why he responded to Jordan Firstman's controversial comments about the show.
Some people definitely caught, “You’re 45 years old!” Also, there's a behind-the-scenes clip that showed you and Connor watching Scott's big kiss at the end of episode five. Can you remember how it felt watching it?
Oh, man, we were crying. We were filming TikToks or something that we were pulled away to shoot. He was such a little speck, I was trying to zoom in on my phone to see it a little bit more. Getting little Robbie's little waddle onto the ice…
I think they tried one take where everyone cheers for François, but there was one version where they were just trying different things, like, “Okay, no, everyone be silent after he kisses him. Just be silent.” I remember that scene made Connor and I feel so ugly, like it was such a twisted feeling.
It went from celebration, everyone's kissing their wives, to, “What's he doing?” We were feeling all the different emotions you could feel. I was excited to see what Jacob was going to use because it changed how I was feeling a lot when I was up there witnessing the different versions.
Looking back on the season as a whole, was there anything that Jacob cut that you wish people got to see or that you just vividly remember?
The very first meeting scene. The beginning opening scene of episode one where I go, “Ilya Rozanov? Shane Hollander…” That’s a six-minute scene, and Jacob cut it down to 30 seconds. But it was so much fun. I had all these [awkward] lines…I lean, “Cold, right?” He kind of looks over and I'm like, “Your parents here?…Mine are…” It's fun, Ilya’s lack of responses, and I asked him, like, 30 follow-up questions, and I just had so much fun being an annoying little shit.
I remember everyone was laughing. Everyone loved the scene, but I agree with Jacob because the scene felt out of character. He cut it out because it doesn't make sense. Shane is not a talker. In our show, he talks very little, and so we need to kind of set that up. Even Shane just coming up to him and saying, “Ilya Rozanov?” is huge, and it needs to be huge for the rest of the show. Maybe releasing it as a deleted scene would be cool.
The people yearn for deleted scenes and bloopers.
We didn’t actually have too many bloopers…I know! Even the funny scenes, we were just so locked in.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. You can now stream all six episodes of Crave's Heated Rivalry on HBO Max.
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