Hudson Williams is writing a new film — but one character is giving him trouble. The Heated Rivalry star revealed that a character in his script is an ex-hockey player, a detail that feels a little too close to the hockey romance that made him famous, and he is “getting tripped up” over the parallel.
Hudson Williams (Credits: Variety)
Hudson Williams writing film with ex-hockey player character
Williams shared the update in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, alongside Carrie-Anne Moss, while promoting their upcoming detective thriller Yaga. Writing is nothing new for the 25-year-old: before his breakout, he wrote and directed several short films, including Soakers, Buttons and Inside Augustine Mendoza’s Quotidian Apartment. This new project, however, would mark his first feature film screenwriting credit.
The sticking point is the character’s sporting past. “I’m writing a movie right now, but one character is an ex-hockey player,” Williams said. “We were like, ‘But if we have this hockey player and then you’ve done a hockey show…’ We’re getting tripped up on it and we’re considering other sports, but for some reason this character just made way more sense being an ex-hockey player.”
Why the Heated Rivalry parallel is hard to escape
The hesitation makes sense. Williams plays Shane Hollander, the Ottawa Centaurs captain, in Heated Rivalry, the Canadian queer hockey romance that catapulted him to fame over the past year. With that role so fresh in audiences’ minds, another hockey connection risks feeling like a repeat rather than a new creation.
Still, Williams suggested the answer may be to push through the mental block rather than change the character: “It’s almost like you have to bust through the prison of your own mind or construct of your own mind.” When asked to elaborate further on the project, his team declined, so plot details remain under wraps for now.
In the meantime, Williams is keeping busy. Yaga, created by Kat Sandler and reworking Slavic Baba Yaga folklore into a contemporary mystery, premiered on AMC+ on October 23 and arrives on Sky Atlantic in the UK on October 31. He is also currently in production on Heated Rivalry season 2, which is set to premiere in spring 2027.
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.