How to Watch
Watch Saturday Night Live Saturdays at 11:30/10:30c on NBC and next day on Peacock.
Connor Storrie isn’t your typical Saturday Night Live Host.
Just one week after his 26th birthday, the Heated Rivalry star has arrived in Studio 8H to flex a whole new side of his acting abilities. He shot to fame with a single leading role under his belt, in the first season of a Canadian TV show that premiered in November 2025. It’s also most definitely not a comedy, though his character has his moments.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the hockey phenomenon, Heated Rivalry follows the tumultuous, years-long romance between hockey rivals Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) of Canada and Ilya Rozanov (Storrie) of Russia. The sexy, romantic show has taken the world by storm, leading Storrie to host SNL just a few months into people knowing his name.
Ahead of his February 28 SNL debut, here’s what to know about Connor Storrie’s blossoming career.
RELATED: Hilary Knight Helped Leslie Jones Explain Why Women’s Hockey Rules on SNL
RELATED: Saturday Night Live’s Season 51 Cast Members: The Full Lineup for 2025-2026
Where is Connor Storrie from?
As the American actor told podcaster Evan Ross Katz, Conor Storrie was “born in Colorado, raised in Texas.” Though we’d understand if you genuinely thought he hails from Russia, given how good at accents he is (watch the SNL promo above as proof!).
RELATED: Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie Reveals the “Craziest” Part of Playing Ilya Rozanov
Connor Storrie played an important role in Joker: Folie à Deux
While Storrie has appeared in a handful of shorts and indie movies such as 2025’s April X, his most high-profile pre-Heated Rivalry role was in Joker: Folie à Deux. The musical follow-up to 2019’s Joker starred Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga as Joker and Harley Quinn/Harleen Quinzel. There was singing, dancing, romancing, and Storrie playing a moody young inmate at Arkham Asylum.
As he later revealed, what Storrie until he started filming was that his character was actually pivotal. Spoiler alert for Joker: Folie à Deux: At the end of the film, he stabs the guy we thought was Joker and implies that he is, in fact, the real Joker. He has less than four minutes of screen time, and the movie ends with him carving up his face in the background as Phoenix’s character dies.
In a 2024 interview, Storrie said that he sent in one self tape and then was given the part. He showed up to set with no script, and just before filming, director Todd Phillips pulled him aside.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, by the way, I wanted to tell you what you’re doing for this whole thing. You kill Arthur at the end of it…and it’s kind of revealed that you’re the real Joker of this universe.’ And I was just like, ‘What?'” Storrie said. “And he was so nonchalant about it too.”
He was told not to tell anyone, was given no direction for the character, and was only ever given script pages for his scenes, all based on one self tape.
Connor Storrie proved he’s always been a star in childhood YouTube videos
Storrie’s acting resumé is fairly short; he was working full-time as a server when he was cast on Heated Rivalry. But he was also studying acting and comedy on the side, taking classes at The Groundlings and acting in Los Angeles’ underground “clown scene,” to quote a profile in Cultured Magazine.
As a kid the early 2010s, he also did what many kids were doing at the time: uploading videos to YouTube. In one viral clip, he’s simply trying to figure out what Katy Perry was talking about in the lyrics of “Firework.”
“Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?” he recites. “I really don’t.”
In another video, a 12-year-old Storrie does his best impression of “what drunk people do at home,” including the line, “So first of all, I’m really hungry.” Nailed it.
RELATED: Marcus Mumford Brought His Guitar to Wife Carey Mulligan’s SNL Monologue
See what else Storrie’s got up his sleeve when he takes the stage on February 28 with Musical Guest Mumford & Sons. Forget the cottage — we’re coming to Studio 8H.
