HBO’s Heated Rivalry Creator Breaks Silence on Cast Sexuality: It’s Actually Against the Law

HBO has a hit on its hands with Heated Rivalry, and as the show blows up, so do the questions about the two leads. The creator, Jacob Tierney, just addressed the elephant in the room: people want to know if stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are gay in real life. Short answer from Tierney: it does not matter, and they are not going there.

Tierney on the sexuality question: not asked, not answered

In a chat with Xtra, Tierney said the production never probed the actors about their sexualities during casting — and, as he puts it, they legally cannot. What they could assess was commitment: are these guys all-in on telling this story with care and authenticity? That was the metric.

I dont think theres any reason to get into that stuff. You cant ask questions like that when youre casting, right? Its actually against the law. So what you have to gauge is somebodys enthusiasm and willingness to do the work.

Tierney said both Williams and Storrie came in ready to work and focused on making the relationship feel real. That effort shows. The chemistry is why you keep seeing clips all over your feed — and why some fans are now extra curious about the actors offscreen. For now, nobody involved is answering that particular question.

Williams felt an immediate spark with Storrie

Over at Out Magazine, Williams described reading with Storrie in auditions and feeling an instant click — an 'inexplicable X-factor' he did not get with anyone else. That mojo carried straight into the show, where they play rival hockey stars whose off-ice attraction complicates everything.

There was an inexplicable X-factor that just felt realer than what I thought it could possibly be.

Tierney backed that up with a very not-safe-for-grandma anecdote from the audition aftermath. According to him, Williams joked that Storrie felt so convincing he seemed like he could physically overpower him — which Tierney took as a sign the pairing was dead-on.

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.

Is that blunt? Extremely. But it tracks with what ends up on screen: playful, intense chemistry that fuels a lot of the buzz — and a lot of the speculation.

So what is Heated Rivalry actually about?

The six-episode series adapts Rachel Reids bestselling novel and is already one of the streamers most-watched shows in the U.S., landing at No. 3 on Max per FlixPatrol. The setup: Shane Hollander (Williams) is the buttoned-up, by-the-book captain from Ottawa. Ilya Rozanov (Storrie) is the loud, unapologetic Russian superstar who loves to stir things up. Their teams — the Montreal Metros and the Boston Raiders — are engineered to hate each other, and the league milks that rivalry for headlines.

Off the ice, though, they are sneaking around for years: hallways, hotel rooms, the whole secret-romance gauntlet. As feelings get deeper, so do the risks in a sport that is hyper-masculine and, historically, not exactly welcoming to queer players. The show does not shy away from intimacy either — yes, there is sex, there is explicit talk — but it is used to build out who these guys are together: comfortable, vulnerable, messy, real.

Quick cheat sheet

• Series: Heated Rivalry
• Creator: Jacob Tierney
• Based on: Rachel Reids novel
• Cast: Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie, Francois Arnaud, Christina Chang, Dylan Walsh, Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova
• Season count: 1 (six episodes)
• Scores right now: IMDb 8.7/10; Rotten Tomatoes 86%
• Where to watch: Max (HBO Max in the U.S.)
• Release cadence: New episodes drop Fridays
• Rank: No. 3 most-watched on Max in the U.S., per FlixPatrol

Between the BookTok crowd rediscovering the source material and the show leaning into the rivalry-romance dynamic, it is no shock this thing is snowballing. If you are wondering whether the leads are going to label themselves for the public, do not hold your breath. If you are here for the heat and the heart, the show delivers both — loudly.