Spoiler alert: This article contains details about the season 1 finale of “Heated Rivals,” currently streaming on HBO Max.
Rivals star Connor Story knew early on that he wanted to be an actor.
He made that perfectly clear in a YouTube video he made under the name Actorboy222 when he was 12 years old. The adorable video was spotted by a die-hard Rivalry fan shortly after the first two episodes of the queer hockey romance series premiered on HBO Max just a month ago, catapulting the story to stardom.
“He was onto something,” Storey says of his pre-teen self. “He brought me here. He was a part of it.”
What would your 25-year-old story tell your younger self now? “I’d say, ‘Cut that damn hair,'” he paused to think. “I tell him to make more work sooner, to create his own thing sooner. Work harder, not just on being an actor, but trying to be in something and waiting for an opportunity. I say, ‘Throw yourself into your own thing.’
The story continues, “I love that little boy. I love him. I didn’t like him before.”
It wasn’t easy for a kid like him growing up in Odessa, Texas.
“I was an artist, a sissy kid from West Texas who didn’t want to play football,” he explains. “I wanted to play pretend, dress up, disappear into strange worlds, entertain, and connect with people in ways that weren’t normal in the world.”
The kid is now one of Hollywood’s hottest young talents.
The story is “Heated Rivals,” in which he plays Ilya Rozanov, a Russian hockey champion who has a passionate, sex-filled relationship with Canadian Shane Hollander (played by Hudson Williams) over several years. The show, an adaptation of the novel Game Changers, chronicles the evolution of Rozanov and Hollander’s relationship from a purely physical one to a deeply romantic and emotional one.
The sixth and final episode of season 1 shows Rozanov visiting a villa in the Netherlands. They finally admit that they are in love with each other. But then Hollander suddenly comes out to his parents that not only is he gay, but he’s having an affair with his career nemesis.
I spoke to Story via Zoom video from his home near Los Angeles ahead of the season finale.
Were you surprised that Ilya said “I love you” for the first time? He said it in the Russian monologue in episode 5, but this was different because he said it in English and directly.
Yeah, but I think this shows that Elijah is in it for the long term and that he’s passionate about it.
He is also the first to call them boyfriend.
That’s a characteristic of Eastern Europeans. They won’t let you participate in it. But once you get into it, it’s for life.
What was it like when you first entered the cottage?
That was the element of this story that I was most excited to get to because the way Jacob Tierney wrote it was really cool. There’s a cool crescendo of editing and writing and stuff that’s really quick and rapid and a lot of energy was put into it beforehand, and then it kind of lands and we end up being just the two of us in the house for a few days. As actors, that’s where there are a lot of cool acting moments, and we can sit on some of those scenes for a really long time. It’s the kind of episode that is officially cathartic. People don’t realize it because there are so many intimate scenes, but this story is actually about people falling in love in faraway places. There’s something cathartic about seeing it all come together in the end.
I think viewers may go into episode 6 thinking it’s going to be a sex fest as Shane and Elijah are alone together. There’s sex, but this episode is about so much more.
It allows you to kind of breathe. They become normal on some level, and that’s what Jacob is talking about when he says “happy ending.” I think what he’s talking about is being emotionally in control and emotionally aware enough to look into each other’s eyes and say, “I love you, let’s do this.” And whatever happens after that, they’re like, “We’re going to sign up for it. We signed up for it, so we’re locked in.”
And when Shane and Elijah get in the car and leave Shane’s parents’ house, you literally drive off into the sunset.
I shot it twice. I don’t know what take they ended up using, but the first take was because we sat there for three or four minutes — I love this song so much that we play it full-length — and Hudson and I were just silent and just crying through that whole scene. As actors, we were like, “We’re killing it. We’re in it. This is real, we’re so in love.” Then the music stopped and Jacob came over and said, “Okay, let’s do this where you guys don’t feel like killing yourself. Let’s start over.” “Please become cute. I’m happy. It’s fun.” We interpreted it very dramatically. But yes, you can literally ride off into the sunset.
I think Shane and his mom’s outdoor conversation really resonates with people. All children want to hear their parents apologize for something they did or didn’t do.
Because you both accept the truth of the problem, you can actually recover from it instead of just placating each other.
This morning, my friend Ben texted me to say that he feels like the show has “rewired” his brain and finally allowed him to pursue love.
oh. It’s all about love, baby, and realizing that what we internalize from the outside world hurts and it affects us. But at the end of the day, you have to do your thing, whatever it is.
You talked about how when you were in high school, a classmate found a video of Actorboy222 and was ostracized. What would you say to those people now?
I don’t feel anything about it. I don’t demonize anyone, no matter how bad they behave, because I truly believe people are doing their best. I think people are hurting. I think everyone is so insecure and sad, and we all have something so tender about us, and I feel lucky to have had a human experience that was robust enough to give me that perspective, ‘You shaped me.’ I really don’t care what words you use to embarrass me or even if you try to embarrass me because I’ve embarrassed you a million times. So keep it up. I don’t care. I don’t think it has to make you look mean, especially if you’re a mean person. If you’re trying to belittle someone, it’s probably because you feel pretty mean yourself. (together) I felt a little sick.
Before I go, I would like to ask you, do you really like tuna melt?
I don’t think I’ve ever had a real tuna melt. I think I ate at Subway once. When I was a kid, we didn’t eat the best.
This Q&A has been edited and condensed.
