SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about the finale of “Heated Rivalry” Season 1, now streaming on HBO Max.
“Heated Rivalry” star Connor Storrie knew early on he wanted to be an actor.
He made that perfectly clear in YouTube videos he made when he was 12 years old under the name Actorboy222. The adorable videos were discovered by rabid “Heated Rivalry” fans shortly after Storrie became an instant star when the first two episodes of the queer hockey romance series premiered on HBO Max just a month ago.
“He was on to something,” Storrie says looking back at his pre-teen self. “He got me here. He was part of it.”
What would 25-year-old Storrie say to his younger self now? “I would say, ‘Cut that damn hair,’” he cracks, before pausing to give it a think. “I would tell him to make more stuff sooner, make more of his own stuff sooner. Just be more diligent about not just being an actor, as in trying to get cast in something and waiting for opportunities. I would be like, ‘Try putting yourself in your own things.’”
Storrie continues, “I love that little guy. I love him. I used to not like him.”
It wasn’t easy for a kid like him growing up in Odessa, Texas.
“I was this artist, sissy boy in West Texas that didn’t want to play football,” he explains. “I wanted to play pretend and play dress up and disappear into weird worlds and entertain and try to connect with people that way, and that was just not the norm out there.”
That kid is now one of Hollywood’s hottest young talents.
Storrie stars in “Heated Rivalry” as Ilya Rozanov, a Russian hocky champion having a steamy sex-filled years-long affair with his Canadian counterpart Shane Hollander (played by Hudson Williams). The show — an adaptation of the “Game Changers” novels — chronicles Rozanov and Hollander’s relationship as it goes from something purely physical to to being a deeply romantic and emotional relationship.
The sixth and final episode of Season 1 finds Rozanov visiting Hollander at his cottage. They finally admit to each other that they’re in love. But then Hollander unexpectedly comes out to his parents as not only being gay but also in a relationship with his career arch-nemesis as his father walks in on the couple kissing after making an unannounced trip to the cottage.
I spoke to Storrie over Zoom video from his Los Angeles-area home ahead of the season finale.
Were you surprised Ilya was the first to say, “I love you”? He said it in the Russian monologue in Episode 5 but this was different because he says it in English and in person.
Yeah, but I think this shows Ilya is in it for the long haul and he’s enthusiastic about that.
He’s also the first to refer to them as boyfriends.
That’s the thing about these eastern Europeans. They don’t let you in on it. But once you’re in, you’re in for life.
What was it like walking into the cottage for the first time?
That was the element of the story that I was most excited to get to because it’s really cool the way that Jacob Tierney wrote it. There’s this kind of cool crescendo where it was so fast and rapid — the editing, the writing – with so much energy upfront, and then it kind of lands and we’re just two people in a house for a few days. As an actor, that’s where a lot of the cool acting moments are, where we really get to sit in some of those scenes for a long, long time. It’s kind of the episode where there’s officially a catharsis. People don’t realize because of all the intimate scenes but this story really is about people falling in love at a distance. To finally see that come together, there’s a catharsis.
I think viewers may go into Episode 6 thinking it’s going to be a sex fest because Shane and Ilya will be by themselves. There’s some sex, but the episode is about much more than that.
You get to kind of breathe. They get to be normal on some level, which is what Jacob talks about when he says the “happy ending.” I think what he’s referring to is being emotionally regulated, emotionally aware enough to look each other in the eyes and be like, “I love you, let’s do this.” And then whatever that looks like afterwards, they’re like, “We’re going to sign up for it. We’re signed up and we’re locked in.”
And then you literally ride off into the sunset when Shane and Ilya get in the car and leave Shane’s parents’ house.
We filmed that twice. I don’t know which take they ended up using, but the first take, because we sit there for three or four minutes — we do the full length of that song, which I fucking love — Hudson and I just kind of rode in silence and just cried during that whole scene. As actors, we were like, “We’re killing. We’re in it. This is real, we’re so in love.” Then the music stops and Jacob comes around and is like, “Alrighty, let’s do one where you guys don’t look like you want to kill yourselves. Let’s start over.” He was like, “Be cute. This happy. This is fun.” We interpreted it in a very dramatic way. But, yeah, we literally get to ride off into the sunset.
I think Shane and his mom’s talk outside is going to resonate so much with people. Every kids wants to hear their parents apologize for something they had or hadn’t done.
They’re both accepting the truth of the matter, and that lets them actually heal from it, rather than it just being a placate-y kind of thing to each other.
My friend Ben texted me this morning and said the show has “rewired” his brain and he feels he can now finally be able to pursue a relationship.
Wow. It’s all about love, baby and realizing the stuff we internalize from the outside world hurts and it affects us. But at the end of the day, you gotta do your thing — whatever that is.
You’ve talked about being ostracized in high school when some classmates found those Actorboy222 videos. What would you say to those people now?
I don’t feel any sort of way about it. I don’t really villainize anyone no matter how nasty they get because I fully do believe that people are doing their best. I think that people are hurt. I think everyone is so insecure and sad, and we all have these things that are so tender to us, and I just feel blessed to be to have had a human experience that’s been just rugged enough to give me that perspective, to be like, “I don’t really give a shit what words you use to describe me, or if you try to embarrass me because I’ve embarrassed myself a million fucking times. I don’t give a shit anymore. So bring it on. I don’t feel bad about it because, especially how visible everything is now on the internet, if you’re a nasty person, I think that just makes you look nasty. I don’t need to try and make you look nasty. I just try to hold myself with grace and understanding. If you’re trying to belittle someone, it’s probably because you feel pretty small yourself because I know when I’ve been mean in the past — we’ve all done things — it’s because I felt this big [he pinches a thumb and finger together]. I felt itty bitty.
Before we go, I have to ask – do you actually like tuna melts?
I don’t think I’ve had a real legit tuna melt. Maybe I had one from Subway once. We didn’t eat the best when I was growing up.
This Q&A has been edited and condensed.
