For ‘Heated Rivalry’ Stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, the Sex Is the Easy Part

“I think a week before the show dropped, [we found out] that we had gotten US distribution,” says Storrie. New Zealand and Spain have since been added to the list. “The whole thing has not made any sense, and has just been really overwhelming.” To be clear, it’s a good kind of overwhelming. Storrie calls Heated Rivalry’s rapid climb “the best-case scenario.”

“It’s like your dream has come true and you can’t really believe it,” agrees Williams. “I’m just so glad it can be in front of more eyes. I think this story does transcend language and culture.”

Williams

Photographer Parker Burr.

While it’s been a whirlwind, both Storrie and Williams have been preparing for this moment for a long time. As a mixed-race child—his mother is Korean, his father is British and Dutch—growing up in British Columbia, Williams had a lot of big dreams, some more achievable than others. “I wanted to become an NBA player,” he says. “My mom said, ‘You can’t dunk. Give up on this dream.’” So he came up with another: “Okay, then I’ll become an actor or a UFC fighter.” His mother was in favor of the former.

So Williams “quit my dreams of becoming the best NBA player ever, and then I wanted to become Daniel Day-Lewis.” He can’t help but add a self-deprecating joke: “That’s also not quite panning out. But I’m here.” At 24 years old, maybe it’s too early to say.

Before landing the role of dutiful Shane Hollander, Williams was starring in short films and landing one-episode guest roles on procedurals like Tracker and Allegiance. While he appreciated the work, he’d been waiting for his big break when Heated Rivalry came his way. “I have been manifesting this,” says Williams.

Unlike his costar, Storrie has always had a one-track mind. “My mom says, ever since I could speak, I have always wanted to be in film,” says Storrie. As a kid in Odessa, Texas, he went to a performing-arts school—to learn how to act, and perhaps also to keep him out of trouble. “We did not live in the best part of town,” he says. “There was a push to help these neighborhoods where there was either crime or there was a significant amount of violence or poverty; they were trying to give all of us a break from that and were like, ‘Go tap dance or something.’”

Storrie

Photographer Parker Burr.

Even so, the 25-year-old remembers his dreams repeatedly being met with skepticism rather than encouragement. When he was about seven or eight, his aunt “did the ‘Okay, well, when that doesn’t work out, what are you going to do?’ thing,” he remembers. Like any good actor, he did have a backup plan. “I genuinely thought for a second and I said, ‘I’m going to be an underwear model if [acting] doesn’t work out,’” he says, laughing. “I think that shows how willing I was to be perceived from such a young age.”