The Canadian sports romance series \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d has fans talking about the stars\u2019 sexual orientations.<\/p>\n
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie play Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, respectively. Shane and Ilya are the captains of rival hockey teams who have a secret affair off the ice. After \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d premiered on HBO Max \u2014 and on Crave in Canada \u2014 some viewers began wondering if Williams and Storrie are gay in real life. <\/p>\n
Series creator Jacob Tierney, who based the show on Rachel Reid\u2019s \u201cGame Changers\u201d book series, doesn\u2019t think the actors\u2019 personal lives are relevant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any reason to get into that stuff. \u2026 You can\u2019t ask questions like that when you\u2019re casting, right? It\u2019s actually against the law. So, what you have to gauge is somebody\u2019s enthusiasm and willingness to do the work,\u201d Tierney told Xtra <\/a>last month. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what\u2019s so impressive about both of these guys is they came into this being like, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re here to do this, and we are here to make this story feel authentic and to be as real as possible.\u2019 And they f\u2014ing hit it out of the park.\u201d<\/p>\n For the show\u2019s steamy sex scenes, Williams and Storrie worked with intimacy coordinator Chala Hunter. Williams told Xtra that Hunter gave them a healthy mix of direction and freedom.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had stifling intimacy coordinators before, where sometimes it\u2019s too rehearsed or too restricted to the point where the actors are saying, \u2018We can go further than this.\u2019 Our show, even though we had to get good blocking and choreography and the technical stuff down, after that we talked about the who, what, where and when. Asking ourselves, \u2018What does this mean in the story?\u2019\u201d Williams explained. \u201cAnd then that almost needs to be reminded because you can be up in your head about the technical aspects. And I think Chala was a good reminder of, \u2018OK, you still need to sell this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The first two episodes of \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d dropped on Friday, Nov. 28. Moving forward, new episodes will be released one at a time on Fridays at 3 a.m. ET. Fans are eager for more of the NSFW romance series.<\/p>\n![\"Heated](\"https:\/\/www.nj.com\/resizer\/v2\/JW7MY6B3INGZJMQAO7U57UBMNQ.jpg?auth=5dece69e5f1bb07a5a5e8e4e0f453ae1254d90b88de0e2a527a8d224791979d6&width=1280&smart=true&quality=90\")