Hudson Williams is giving fans an early sense of what it felt like to return to Heated Rivalry for season two — and by his account, stepping back into the queer hockey romance drama came with both excitement and a surprising amount of nerves.
The 26-year-old actor opened up during a conversation at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he described reuniting with co-star Connor Storrie on the set of the show’s second season. “It was surreal to step into it,” Williams told the crowd.
Williams said the return was not as simple as walking back onto a familiar set and immediately slipping into character. After the first season, the actors had lived through more than just the memory of filming: they had watched the episodes, seen fan reactions and experienced everything that had happened around the series over the past 10 months.
That made going back feel unexpectedly intimidating. Williams said he and Storrie had trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of returning and worried about whether they would be able to find the characters again with ease.
“We’re going to be kissing each other, brother. I’m going to be doing my fucking Russian accent to you,” Williams said, mimicking Storrie as he recalled the dynamic between them. He also noted that this was the first time he had ever returned to a character on a large scale.
Finding Their Way Back to Shane and Ilya
Despite the nerves, Williams said he and Storrie eventually chose to lean into confidence. The two actors reminded themselves that they knew the characters deeply and decided to trust that history once they were back in the environment of the show.
“We’re going to show up and it’s just going to be Ilya and Shane right back,” Williams said.
But the first moments back on set still tested that confidence. Storrie worked on the first day without Williams and later shared his reaction with his co-star. According to Williams, Storrie returned saying, “It was sort of weird. They were all so good that I was like, am I good? Am I in it? Am I doing the thing? Am I doing an impression of Ilya?”
Williams admitted that he initially believed he would avoid that kind of uncertainty. That changed once he arrived for his own work.
“Then I showed up. I was doing the scene and there was some extras, who were clearly fans, and they’re just so perky. I was like, ‘Oh God. Oh God, am I doing a Shane impression?’” he recalled.
According to Williams, the adjustment did not last long. He said he and Storrie were able to find their footing quickly once production was underway. A major factor, he said, was the atmosphere maintained by series creator Jacob Tierney, who continued to make the set feel as small and intimate as it had during the first season.
Williams also pointed to the returning crew as part of what helped restore that sense of familiarity. With the same crew in place from the previous season, the environment carried over in a way that helped the actors settle back into the world of the show.
What Season Two Will Explore
Williams also offered a glimpse at the emotional terrain of the upcoming season. Season two will mainly be based on Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry follow-up novel, The Long Game.
“It’s a sad book,” Williams said. “If season one/book one is the yearning season, book two is external adversity and [relationship] communication problems that feel very real and human.”
For Williams, that means season two will ask him to play a different kind of tension as Shane. He suggested the material may be emotionally difficult in the day-to-day experience of filming, particularly because of what remains unresolved between characters.
“To be able to play those as Shane, [it’s] going to be frustrating and annoying to leave set [when] things are left unsaid, but hopefully it’ll make for really good TV,” he said.
The comments give a clearer sense of the shift ahead for Heated Rivalry: after the first season’s focus on yearning, Williams is signaling a second season shaped by outside pressures, communication struggles and the challenge of returning to characters whose story is still very much in motion.