SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details about Episode 4 of “Heated Rivalry,” now streaming on HBO Max.
When Connor Storrie was filming his self-tape for “Heated Rivalry,” he decided he had to show off his body.
“I was like, ‘If we’re doing a show that heavily involves sex,’” he tells me via Zoom video from his Los Angeles-area home. “So I took off my shirt, even though it didn’t say that I had my shirt off the entire time because I was like, ‘If we’re doing that, you all have to see what these people look like naked.’”
It worked.
Storrie landed the part of Ilya Rozanov, a Russian hockey star having a hot and steamy years-long off-rink affair with his Canadian counterpart, Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams). When the first two episodes dropped over Thanksgiving weekend on HBO Max — the streamer acquired the series from Canadian streamer Crave — the show became an instant hit with word of the soapy queer drama exploding on social media. Memes and GIFS zeroed in on the romance, the sports and, more often than not, the sex. “I didn’t even know that my butt was a topic of conversation until I had so many random people sending me screenshots of my ass on Twitter,” the 25-year-old actor says.
Storrie, who grew up in Odessa, Texas, was just another actor living paycheck to paycheck when he booked “Heated Rivalry.” In fact, he was on the verge of losing his waitering job at Laurel Grill in Los Angeles’ Culver City neighborhood when the offer to play Ilya came in. “I did a fucking bad job. I dropped the ball, so I got another bad review,” Storrie recalls. “My boss sat me down, being like, ‘This is not acceptable. This is a final warning. If anything like this ever happens again, you’re out.’”
Minutes later, with the written warning in his hand, Storrie looked at his phone. His agent had called to tell him that he got “Heated Rivalry.” “I worked a few more shifts and then was like, ‘See you!’” Storrie says.
Can you wrap your mind around what’s happening?
It doesn’t feel real. Also, I’m coming off my directorial debut. I just wrapped production on my first feature that I directed. I did that for two months, right before going into press for this, so I’m like, “I feel so out of the loop.” I literally wasn’t online for two months.
Tell me about this feature.
It’s an iPhone feature. We did it super, super-duper indie, very reminiscent of my favorite filmmaker’s first films, like a Darren Aronofsky or an old school John Waters thing, where it’s pretty much just me, 10 close actors that I know just running around being crazy. Shot on the new iPhone, so it is in 4K. iPhones have come a long way.
What’s it about?
It’s super bleak, but funny and brutal. It’s about this alien spirit that incarnates into a human body, wakes up as a full-blown adult and just gets fucked over for an hour and a half [by] the brutality of life, violence, being robbed, being stolen, being abused, being all of it, and then finding companionship through that.
Are you the alien?
I am not. Well, actually, I play the alien before he incarnates into a human body, but you can’t even tell it’s me.
Was “Heated Rivalry” shot chronologically? Was your first sex scene when Ilya and Shane first hooked up?
The first sex scene that we did was in Episode 2, the Vegas hotel room. I dragged the chair, I watch him, he puts on a show for me, and then it gets more aggressive.
You worked a lot with an intimacy coordinator, but what was going through your mind before shooting that first scene?
I was less exposed than Hudson was, right? I’m fully clothed. I’m bossing him around. He takes his underwear off. What was I thinking? Let me actually think about that. I just remember, for 90% of that scene, the camera is on my face. I, as a person, move a lot, and so it takes me some energy sometimes to chill out and not move. In my mind, I’m like, “Don’t move, feed into the sexy tension of it all.” Then once we get to the actual sex, to be honest with you, I know it’s not very glamorous, but a lot of those sexual scenes, it’s about making sure that you move in a way that we don’t see our cock socks. It’s literally like, “My hand is going to be here. Your leg is going to be here. I’m going to hide myself with this.” And then it’s a constant game of like, “Oh, right. Yep, that’s great.” “No, no. OK, now, we see it.” “Oh, yep, no, no, that’s great. OK, keep going.” It’s a lot of that.
In Episode 4, we see Ilya actually has feelings for Shane. He’s getting jealous of Shane’s girlfriend.
Oh, just you wait. Episodes 5 and 6, baby! It’s really good.
Did you have to drink a lot of water before Ilya had to spit into Shane’s hand in Episode 4?
Everyone was drinking City Seltzers. I don’t know if they sponsored our show, but we were all addicted to those things. So, when I say we were hydrated, we were hydrated on that set. I forgot that I spit in his hand until I saw it two days ago, and I was like, “Damn, we went there, huh?” We need to bring that back for Season 2. Bring the spit back.
Earlier today, it was announced that “Heated Rivalry” is getting a second season. The show is based on Rachel Reid’s book series, but things can change in adaptations. Do you have any idea where they’re going to go in Season 2?
I have no idea. With how true we stayed to the book for this one, I can assume it’s going to be equally as true. Rachel Reid is now a New York Times bestselling author. Those books are literally sold out everywhere. They’re number one on some of the book charts, which is crazy. I think that proves that these are obviously really well-constructed stories that a lot of people are really into. The only way to make this make sense is to stick to the books and also honor the fandom of the people who are really spearheading this whole thing.
What did you tell friends and family about the show back in Odessa?
My mom has watched it. I was like, “There’s a lot of sex. We got picked up by HBO.” You know how sexy something is if it’s on HBO. She was like, “Oh, OK. How do you feel about that?” And I was like, “I feel good. How do you feel about that?” She’s like, “If you feel good, I feel good.” Obviously, she can’t watch the sex scenes. She was like, “I can’t watch the sex scenes yet,” and I was like, “You don’t ever have to watch the sex scenes, mom. I don’t need you to watch that.” Hudson’s mom, too. We were at the premiere, and I was like, “So, what did you think seeing it on the big screen?” And she was like, “Oh, I had to cover my eyes for most of it,” and I’m like, “Yeah, that makes sense.” That must be weird, huh?
You tell me.
The sex, specifically it doesn’t feel very spicy to me because I was there in-person doing it. I have to watch the episodes two times in order to really get into the story, because my brain the entire time is like, “Wait, I remember the day that we shot that. Right before this, we did that. Wait, what episode is that? Oh, that’s next episode. Oh.” I’m just remembering the plot more so than anything. I’m not a good judge of this show.
Is all this attention overwhelming? Do you even know how to navigate all of this?
My MO is to just stay focused on my creativity…It’s so easy nowadays to get lost in the internet sauce. I obviously want to and need to engage and be a part of the cultural zeitgeist and take what people are saying, review everything, but I can’t get lost in the comments, the tweets. I didn’t even know that my butt was a topic of conversation until I had so many random people send screenshots of my ass on Twitter. I’m like, “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize it got that specific.” I knew that the sex would be a moment of intrigue for people, but I’m like, “Damn, I didn’t realize it was going to be GIFs, and screenshots, and wallpapers, and stickers, and 30,000 tweets.”
What’s the pressure now to keep in shape?
I know, right? Luckily, I have put in a lot of work over the years. I also love working out. Working out is just time. We hear about these celebrity transformations where it’s like, “This guy gained 20 pounds of hard muscle in six weeks for this thing.” Real fitness is four or five times a week, getting to the gym every single week for years, and slowly building up a solid body position. So, luckily, now, I can coast. I’ve only worked out twice in the past two months, and my physique is OK.
How many pushups do you do before each shirtless scene?
I don’t do pushups. I do curls because my chest is — here we go, I sound so narcissistic — is naturally rounded, so I don’t have to try that hard. I’m more so arm-focused because my arms are my weak point. So I’ll take a chair and just do [bicep curls] 40 times, or shoulders. Shoulders are big. Shoulders are a big deal.
How much adlibbing and improv are going on during the sex scenes, or is it very by the book?
Everything is scripted. Yeah, there are some oohs and ohs that we put in there. The things that aren’t fully scripted are some of our touches, some of our body kisses and stuff, and that just came down to establishing a bunch of boundaries beforehand. There are levels to everything, right? Where are you allowed to be touched? What type of kisses are you allowed to do? And what do you wear to give you proper protection in any moment, depending on the act? There’s a closed-mouth kiss. There’s an open-mouth kiss. There’s an open-mouth kiss with tongue. There’s a hardcore open-mouth, prolonged kiss with tongue. You can wear pants. You can wear shorts. You can wear a G-string. You can wear layers. You can wear bike shorts that have padding. You can wear neoprene. There are levels to it. Hudson and I, separately, we’re just like, “I’m not weird about that. I’m not squeamish.” I trust him. I also feel confident enough in the production to voice anything if I ever feel uncomfortable, so I’m like, “So, let’s go all the way. I’ll wear the least amount of clothes. I’ll do the most amount of kisses.” It literally just made me and Hudson be like, “Is it cool if I touch you here?” And I’m like, “Yeah, touch me anywhere. I don’t care.” So all those little intricate kisses, touches in between moments, a lot of that is just us organically feeding into that moment.
You guys have really become best friends.
He was just here for a week and stayed at my place. It’s really enlightening about the culture of how men and man-on-man affection is received because you don’t see that a lot. It’s taboo for men to be friends and grab each other a certain way or hold hands. And me and Hudson being in such a sexual circumstance with one another, it’s really interesting to watch people sexualize our very amicable signs of affection. That just shows where the culture is still at in a way like, “Oh, these two men…” Just because we’re really comfortable with each other and we love each other, we’ve been through the craziest experience together, we’re on this crazy rollercoaster together, if I have my hand on his leg as we’re sitting down doing a press thing because he’s my best buddy and I love him, and we have that level of comfort. It’s just interesting that that instantly gets turned into, “They’re more than friends.”
I did not see anything like this on TV when I was growing up. I know there’s the sex and obviously, the show isn’t for all ages, but I think about that young man or woman out there who is coming to terms with their sexuality, battling with their sexuality. To see the two of you, whether it’s on-screen or off-screen, I’m just going to say it, that kind of stuff saves lives. It really does. Do you feel that? Have you been feeling that from young people?
It’s so easy to have these conversations about, “It is important for gay people to see this.” That’s such a big concept that we can logically be like, “Yeah, that’s important for this, this, this, and this reason.” But when you get really cellular like that, and I look someone in the eyes and someone says that, or there were meet and greets when we were in Toronto, where a lot of people are just excited about the show because they love these characters and stuff, but then every 1 out of 100 people would come up and were shaking with, “This is important to me. I see myself in this person” — it’s making me emotional [Storrie tears up] – “and being able to read this or see this makes my existence a little less painful.” It’s cool because I’ve gotten that opinion from multiple people, not just gay men, but transgender men, bisexual women. There are so many different people that identify with that sense of otherness. It’s really inspiring. I didn’t really get the magnitude of what that meant until looking someone face-to-face and them being like, “This is important to me. Thank you for bringing something to light.”
I can’t wait for next Halloween in West Hollywood.
Oh God, I didn’t even think of that.
No one’s mentioned that to you?
Bro, people are going to dress up as us?
It’s going to be sexy hockey players everywhere.
That’s crazy. I never thought of that. One of my close friends, Sean, said, “That’s how you know something is of cultural significance is if people Halloween-ized.” This year’s “Weapons” was everywhere with Aunt Gladys. People are going to put my fucking mole on their face? Whoa, you just blew my mind. I did not think about that.
Hudson recently put it out there that he would love to play Nightwing in the DC universe. Which superhero are you going after?
I want to be a supervillain, a new supervillain. I was already a part of the Joker. [Storrie played the unnamed asylum patient who fatally stabs Arthur Fleck in Joker: Folie à Deux]. I want to be bald. Remember that Christian Bale character [Gorr the God Butcher] in that “Thor” movie where he was completely painted gray, and he had black teeth, and he was bald? Give me something weird like that.
You want the weird stuff?
As an actor, playing dress-up is my favorite thing in the entire planet, and that’s what this is to me. This is just an exaggerated, prolonged playing dress-up. Putting on the accent, getting the haircut, wearing the necklace, having the hockey gear, it’s all play pretend and dress-up. So yeah, I want to play the devil or something.
This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.
