It’s been a whirlwind year for Hudson Williams.
Ever since “Heated Rivalry,” Jacob Tierney’s sensuous decade-long romantic saga between closeted hockey stars Shane Hollander (Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), premiered in November 2025 on Crave and HBO Max, Williams has been thrust into the spotlight. Adapted from Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series of novels exploring toxic masculinity, internalized homophobia and the closet, and providing an addictive mélange of yearning and forbidden love, “Heated Rivalry” became a global phenomenon, earning Williams Best Leading Performance in a Drama Series at the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards (the youngest winner ever at 25) for his sensitive portrayal of the autistic Hollander, and vaulting its two magnetic leads to the A-list.
The tabloid scrutiny has also led to some unfortunate episodes, however, like the time Williams was followed to his apartment in Paris by a rabid gang of autograph hounds and the gossip blogs’ fixation on his relationship with his long-term girlfriend Katelyn Larson.
On Sept. 17, the hometown boy appeared at the Toronto International Film Festival for “Making Waves With… Hudson Williams,” a career-spanning conversation with TIFF’s vice president of public programming, Keith Bennie, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in downtown Toronto. Williams was on hand to promote his role in “Yaga,” an upcoming horror series from Kat Sandler premiering Oct. 23 on Crave and AMC. And the talk drew far and away the longest lines of the festival, snaking around four city blocks an hour before showtime. The situation didn’t improve upon arrival at the theater, with the ushers’ ticket readers broken and unable to scan people in. The logistic hiccups caused the talk to begin late (a running theme at this year’s fest). Once it did, though, all seemed forgiven, as the actor was showered with more “Woo’s!” and “We love you’s!” than the rest of the festival’s talks combined.
The talk began with Bennie asking Williams about attending a screening of “Obsession” at TIFF. According to Williams, he’d already seen the film before, but he and star Inde Navarrette share a lawyer, so he went to see it again — and was just as scared this time. And he’s a big horror fan.
“I love horror. I could be up here for a long time talking about my favorite horror movies, but it’s definitely a genre I want to get into,” he said. “I think I had a high horror threshold when I was a kid, so I was looking for something that could truly rattle me.”
Williams opened up about his early years going to a performing arts elementary school where the kids performed “dumbed-down Shakespeare” and “poetry recitals,” which laid the foundation for revisiting acting in high school and beyond. He said his biggest inspiration as a young actor was Heath Ledger’s turn as The Joker in “The Dark Knight.” The audience was also treated to Williams’ short films, including “Dogging,” a documentary spoof featuring him in underwear and a dog collar as a man grieving his overbearing mother’s death who’s being rented out by people and treated as a dog.
“All of us were working jobs. We did not get paid to do anything. But that’s what brought us all together. We wanted to make things that were fun to us and challenged us in different ways, even though they were completely ridiculous,” Williams explained.
At one point, Williams fielded a question from Tierney about his “least favorite movie,” and confessed that it was David Ayer’s 2016 superhero flick “Suicide Squad.”
“The first ‘Suicide Squad’ I was excited for… the trailer was so good and I was just disappointed,” he admitted, adding diplomatically, “Everyone who’s in it was good!”
Eventually, the talk turned to “Heated Rivalry.” Williams said he was “just waiting by a phone for five years with no promise of it going well, but obviously ‘Heated Rivalry’ changed things.” The audience was shown a clip of Hollander coming out to his girlfriend Sophie, played by Sophie Nélisse. Williams was asked by Bennie about playing someone so deep in the closet and delivering such a remarkably restrained performance.
“Underneath, I think it’s the excruciating pain of knowing exactly who you are and what you like and it reading as wrong up here, and those two things being so out of tune and not being able to go, ‘I know what I am… and that is OK,’” Williams said of Hollander’s internal struggle.
“It was clear to me that Shane has never been vulnerable in front of another person about the biggest thing that looms over him and has followed him for over a decade,” Williams continued, “and Sophie/Rose makes it so easy, but he’s not comfortable feeling that vulnerable, so [I was] just trapping it underneath the surface and making sure you’re feeling all of it.”
Williams had kind words for “Heated Rivalry’s” feverish fans and how they picked up on exactly what he was trying to accomplish with his depiction of Hollander, particularly the way he grappled with his feelings for Rozanov and his inability to tell him how he truly feels.
“This guy’s kind of this little loser boy. You’re kind of like, come on, man! Just tell him! Stand up for yourself! Stop giving in! Say what you’re feeling!” joked Williams. “And he doesn’t do it. He’s just too fucking smitten. But they somehow picked up on all the things that I was using to justify why he’s not standing up for himself.”
He briefly teased Season 2 of “Heated Rivalry,” which is currently filming and expected to hit screens in April 2027, saying it was “surreal” to step into Hollander’s shoes (skates?) once more and emphasizing its difference in tone and approach.
“It’s a sad book. If Season 1/Book 1 is the yearning season, Book 2 is external adversity and interrelational communication problems that feel very real and human,” offered Williams. “Just to be able to play those as Shane is going to be frustrating and annoying to leave set with things that are left unsaid, but hopefully it will make for good TV.”
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