Stars of steamy gay hockey drama Heated Rivalry had ‘no boundaries’ with romance scenes

Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, the stars of the intensely anticipated gay sports romance series Heated Rivalry, have opened up about filming the show’s many, many sex scenes.

Adapted from the Game Changers book series by romance writer Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry follows Williams and Storrie as Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov respectively, two ice hockey players on competing teams.

In classic rivals-to-lovers fashion, the duo start the series going head to head in the rink, before slowly taking their physical contact to the bedroom.

During a recent interview with Teen Vogue, the series’ showrunner Jacob Tierney said that there are around three sex scenes per episode, and described the new show, which drops on 28 November, as gayer than this year’s surprise sapphic smash, The Hunting Wives.

As reported by Offside News, Williams and Storrie also said that there were “no boundaries” between them when preparing for the show’s stream of sex scenes.

Speaking at the Heated Rivalry premiere on 23 November, Storrie said that he and Williams were not “particularly squeamish” about being involved in sex scenes, with Williams adding: “No boundaries.”

“From the jump with Jacob and our intimacy coordinator, we were like ‘you can do whatever you want to me, however you want to me,’” Storrie added.

Game Changers is known for its numerous, fairly explicit sex scenes, and Tierney has said that he managed to include “nearly all” of them in the series.

“Because of the way the story is laid out, it takes place over eight years, and these are people who learn about each other through f******, so the sex didn’t feel gratuitous,” he told Teen Vogue.

“This is how they communicate: They meet up three times a year and have sex until they hit a point where they’re like, ‘Oh God, we keep doing this. We must have feelings for each other.’”

Tierney said that while filming the first of the sex scenes on day one of the shoot, he could hear Williams and Storrie making sure they were doing OK with how far the scenes were going.

“You can hear them just checking in with each other, being like, ‘You good? You comfortable?’ ‘You good? You comfortable?’ They’re so present with one another, and they were down to make this as good as they could right away, which is obviously huge,” he explained.

“I think we can hold these shots for so long, because they’re so compelling together.”

He added that Storrie felt like the right fit for Ilya as he was “confident” and “funny” and had the character’s “slyness”. Williams, meanwhile, had “all the seriousness” needed to portray the “tentative” Shane.

“When it starts out and it’s sexual, Ilya is comfortable with that. He has no qualms about his sexuality and what that means, which is not the same [as] Shane,” Storrie explained of the difference between the two characters.

“But then when it comes to romance, Shane is pretty emotionally regulated in that sense, even if he’s not very experienced. He’s at least upfront and honest about that, but then that’s when it gets too much for Ilya.”

Heated Rivalry is confirmed to premiere on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US and Australia on Friday 28 November.

A UK release date is yet to be confirmed.

Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.