Entertainment
‘Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams Just Joined an 8-Episode Mystery Thriller You’ll Obsess Over
Crave’s Heated Rivalry only just premiered at the end of last November, but already, the show is a worldwide sensation. Based on the book of the same name in Rachel Reid‘s Game Changers series, Heated Rivalry follows the longtime secret romance of two rival professional hockey players: Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie). Season 1 follows the events of Shane and Ilya’s first book, which shows them carrying on a secret fling for a decade while slowly starting to realize that it means much more than that to both of them. The entire Heated Rivalry cast has rightfully been getting a great deal of acclaim for their performances, and we are champing at the bit for the already-confirmed second season.
While fans wait for another season of Heated Rivalry, they can look forward to an upcoming series about Alexander the Great by Heated Rivalry creator Jacob Tierney, as well as a number of upcoming projects starring Heated Rivalry‘s actors. As reported by TV Insider, Hudson Williams has been cast to star in the upcoming Crave TV series, Yaga, alongside Carrie-Anne Moss, Noah Reid, and Clark Backo. The series is an adaptation of the play written by Kat Sandler, who is serving as the series’ showrunner and will also be writing for the show. Yaga is a thriller with dark comedy elements, just like the play on which it’s based, and it will expand the play to eight half-hour episodes.
What Is Hudson Williams’ New Show ‘Yaga’ About?
Yaga is a comedic and suspenseful retelling of the story of Baba Yaga, a character from Slavic folklore. Baba Yaga is an old woman who is typically portrayed as an evil witch who eats children. In Yaga, though, Baba Yaga is a charming, fully-fledged morally gray antihero who knows how to get what she wants. The series starts when a detective named Rapp (Reid) goes to a small, isolated town while investigating the disappearance of Henry Park (Williams), the young heir to a wealthy fishing dynasty. While there, Rapp meets the rest of the townspeople, including the skeptical local sheriff (Backo) and an enchanting professor (Moss). It is during his time here that Rapp starts to piece together how the mysterious local myth of Baba Yaga could somehow be connected to his latest case.
Yaga takes a classic old tale and spins it into a modern mystery, framed through the eyes of a detective who’s an outsider to a town that is all too familiar with the story of Baba Yaga. The story is grounded in one detective’s search for answers, but the myth of Baba Yaga hangs over the whole story, as it slowly becomes clear how the myth can provide answers to what happened to Henry Park. Yaga will be Crave’s first half-hour drama series, and like the play, it will put Baba Yaga front and center as a bold, unapologetic antihero.
Hudson Williams Proved His Star Power in ‘Heated Rivalry’
Hudson Williams will be playing an important role in Yaga as Henry Park, the character whose disappearance kicks off the events of the series. After Heated Rivalry, it is no doubt that Williams is up to task for the role. Williams plays Shane Hollander with a great deal of nuance and care, as Shane struggles to come to terms with both his identity as a gay man, as well as the inherent risk of having romantic feelings for his professional rival. The specific details that make up the character of Henry Park in Yaga are a mystery, but he already seems to be a very different role from Shane. Henry is a young, pampered heir who goes missing early on in Yaga, so there will be suspense in his dangerous circumstances, and comedy in the nature of a privileged character being taken out of his usual environment.
Shane Hollander is a complex character, and Williams plays him well, showing how Shane works very hard to keep his feelings in, often hiding them even from himself. Williams brought nuance to Shane’s character arc over the course of Heated Rivalry Season 1, showing how Shane was slowly able to figure out who he is, embrace his feelings for Ilya, and get to the place where he could have these difficult conversations about his feelings and his identity with his loved ones. Although Henry Park’s personality has not yet been revealed, he needs to be the sort of character that viewers will care about, because his disappearance kicks off the show. As such, Williams is the perfect casting for the role, and it will be exciting to see him in a suspenseful thriller after Heated Rivalry.