Highlights
- Hudson Williams is writing a movie with an ex-hockey player character and admits the Heated Rivalry overlap is a snag.
- He says his team is weighing other sports, but the character makes far more sense as a former hockey player.
- The reveal came during an EW cover story for Yaga, his new AMC+ and Crave thriller costarring Carrie-Anne Moss.
Hudson Williams has a hockey problem, and for once it has nothing to do with Shane Hollander’s love life.
The Heated Rivalry heartthrob is writing a movie, and one of its characters is, wait for it, a former hockey player. “I’m writing a movie right now, but one character is an ex-hockey player,” he told Entertainment Weekly.
You can practically hear the self-awareness kick in mid-thought. “But if we have this hockey player and then you’ve done a hockey show…” he said of the debate with his collaborators.
The result is full creative gridlock. “We’re getting tripped up on it and we’re considering other sports,” Williams admitted.
Our pitch: curling. Nobody has ever been typecast by a curling movie.
But Williams can’t seem to quit the ice. He said “for some reason this character just made way more sense being an ex-hockey player.”
Then he went full film school. “It’s almost like you have to bust through the prison of your own mind,” he said.
The confession came during EW‘s digital cover story for Yaga, his new detective thriller with costar Carrie-Anne Moss.
Moss had her own hang-up. The show reinterprets the Baba Yaga myth, which is also the nickname of Keanu Reeves‘ hitman in John Wick, and Moss’ character name-drops the franchise.
Her first reaction to referencing her Matrix costar’s movie? “That’s my friend’s movie and that’s not my movie.”
Williams answered by spilling on his script. His team was considerably less chatty: when pressed for details, they “kindly shot down the question.”
Fine, keep your secrets. The guy has earned a bit of the benefit of the doubt behind the camera.
Before Heated Rivalry, Williams wrote and directed shorts including Soakers, Buttons, and Inside Augustine Mendoza’s Quotidian Apartment. He was also slinging pasta at the Old Spaghetti Factory in New Westminster.
His old Langara College program coordinator remembers him as a “fresh-faced lad with a great attitude.”
The kicker: Williams played high school basketball and never actually played ice hockey. Now the sport won’t let him go.
He’s always been exacting about getting the hockey world right. “I felt like the specificity was really the thing I just wanted to nail,” he told CNN about playing Shane.
Meanwhile, his calendar is a crime scene. Yaga premiered Oct. 23 on AMC+ in the U.S. and Crave in Canada, with Williams playing two roles: missing fishery heir Henry Park and Logan Casey, Henry’s roommate who happens to look just like him.
Showrunner Kat Sandler said the lookalike twist let the show do “a little bit of ‘rich mouse, poor mouse.'”
Heated Rivalry Season 2 is still shooting its next six episodes in Canada, and Williams is lined up for Apparatus with Dylan O’Brien and Tyrant with Charlize Theron, Julia Garner, Demi Moore and Omar Apollo. Netflix’s The Altruists is also on deck.
As for Season 2, Williams has already promised it’s “hotter, wetter, and longer.”
So yes, he can absolutely write a hockey character. Shane Hollander paved the way for this mystery ex-player to skate. The only person standing in Hudson Williams’ way is Hudson Williams.
