Adapting a beloved novel for the screen always comes with expectations and with Heated Rivalry, those expectations are sky-high. The fan-favourite romance, known for its emotional intensity and slow-burn vulnerability, has finally found its way to screen and for its leading actors, the journey was as psychological as it was performative.
Connor Storrie on playing Ilya
For Connor Storrie, the pressure of honouring the book wasn’t something he allowed himself to dwell on. Instead, he leaned into trust, in his co-star and in the creative process. “I never really considered that too much,” Connor admitted. “I had a really strong vision of what I saw, and I really trusted Jacob. So I was like, we’re going to bring this to life.”
There’s a quiet bravery in that approach. Book adaptations often come with inevitable scrutiny, scenes dissected online, performances compared to imagined versions readers have carried for years. Connor knew that going in.
“To be completely honest,” he continues, “I was ready to accept that my performance, no matter what it looked like, would be potentially disappointing to people who love the book. That’s just the nature of it. Anytime a book is adapted, there’s going to be, ‘That’s not what it should be.’ So I accepted that.”
Rather than feel paralysed by that awareness, he used it as liberation. Acceptance, in his case, became creative freedom.
“That freed me up to just be like, this is what I think it is. Be open and present, know this character, and just go, regardless of what element of the story it is.”
Hudson Williams on playing Shane
If Connor’s process was about release, his co-star Hudson Williams approached it through fear but the kind that fuels nuance. One of the most anticipated moments from the book isn’t grand or dramatic. It’s deceptively simple: an offer of a tuna melt.
For his character, that small domestic gesture carries more weight than any overt declaration of love.
“I think Shane is feeling that fear of domesticity,” he explains. “I remember Jacob saying on set, ‘This tuna melt scares you.’ When he says, ‘Do you want a tuna melt?’ that has to freeze you.”
Up until that moment, love has existed in larger, more performative gestures in confident romantic overtures and charged, shadowy encounters. But this? This is daylight. Open space. The suggestion of something lasting.
“Up to that point, Shane has made bigger gestures of love,” he says. “You see Ilya freeze up. But the fact that it looks like this like home life, like a partner —it’s a big space, it’s open, it’s daylight, as opposed to this dark shadowy hotel room. I think that open space scares him.”
“For Shane, that’s like the ocean and he’s drowning in it. I think Ilya’s comfort with him terrifies him. That it looks like everything he wants is harder to accept than if it is this shadowy forbidden thing.”
