Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams opens up about getting matching tattoos with his costar

Heated Rivalry's stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie portray characters with intense chemistry, but off-screen, they are the closest of friends. The pair first met at the chemistry read for the Canadian sports romance drama, Heated Rivalry, which premiered on November 28, 2025, on Crave and HBO Max, among other international platforms.

While filming for the show, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie became great friends and even got a matching tattoo. Williams recently opened up more about their friendship and the tattoo in an interview with The Permanent Press.

Heated Rivalry stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie got matching tattoos

In Heated Rivalry, we see Williams and Storrie portray Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, respectively, who are professional ice hockey players playing on rival teams. But while they compete on ice, they develop and continue a very secret s**ual relationship over the years of their careers, which eventually becomes more than casual.

Off-screen, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie have developed a strong friendship, and when Williams was asked by The Permanent Press if that friendship strengthened over the period they filmed the first season, he said,

"Yeah, it strengthened a lot. You know, a lot of it was just, you know, we are playing people who are each other's only sort of confidants. Um, and then also me and Connor just had a lot of references and common interests and and similar approaches to uh the arts and film and acting that it was sort of bound to be a friendship."

He also went on to describe his friend and fellow costar Storrie as,

"... a beautiful, sensitive little radical artist boy who is to be treated with utmost care and only hugs and friendliness..."

When asked about their matching tattoo, Williams said to The Permanent Press,

“We felt that was the cherry on top of our friendship, and it was what needed to be done.”

Hudson Williams did not go into the meaning behind the tattoo in this particular interview, but in an interview clip posted by HBO Max on Instagram, Conner Storie and Williams said that the matching tattoo says

"sex sells"

They both then elaborated on what the tattoo means. Storrie said,

"We settled on sex sells because I think it was just kind of like a tongue-in-cheek, kind of winky view of being part of something like this."

Williams added,

"There's sex that is selling it and it's a very sort of alluring factor, but we believe in sort of the worth and merit of it beyond that."

Other than Williams and Storrie, Heated Rivalry stars François Arnaud as Scott Hunter, Robbie G.K. Callan Potter as Hayden Pike, Christina Chang as Yuna Hollander, Dylan Walsh as David Hollander, Kolton Stewart as Carter Vaughn, Sophie Nélisse as Rose Landry, Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova as Svetlana Sergeevna Vetrova, Slavic Rogozine as Alexei Grigoryevich Rozanov, Yaroslav Poverlo as Grigori Rozanov, and Kaden Connors as Sasha, among others.

Heated Rivalry is directed by Jacob Tierney, who is also an executive producer on the show, along with Brendan Brady and Justin Stockman. Lori Fitchburg is the producer. The production companies behind the show are Accent Aigu Entertainment and Bell Media.

Episode 5 of Heated Rivalry, I'll Believe in Anything, will be released on Crave in Canada and on HBO Max in the USA on December 19, 2025.

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