I’m sorry, I know I already posted about Heated Rivalry today, but this is just how it is now. Every few hours there’s another update because the show is so BIG and Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are experiencing the kind of instant stardom that doesn’t seem to happen often. And, fortunately, it’s been an equal trajectory.

I was wondering when Heated Rivalry first premiered whether or not Connor, because he’s American, would get more attention. This, I suppose, is a bit of little sister complex, being Canadian and seeing since I’ve been alive, how much American culture dominates headlines, even north of the border. That hasn’t been the case with Heated Rivalry – it is almost always mentioned as a Crave series, though it airs on HBO Max in the US; it’s Canadian-ness is very much part of its appeal, not diminished but actually highlighted. And Hudson is just as much of a heatscore as Connor, helped in large part by his personality. As we have seen, Hudson is not Shane Hollander, he is probably IRL the more chaotic of the two, and seems to be immune to media training, which is actually one of the reasons he’s so appealing. Because he’s not operating on auto-pilot from a manual.

The topic of media training comes up in his new cover story for Wonderland, interviewed by Sophie Nélisse, who plays Rose Landry on the show and who is also known for her work in Yellowjackets. There’s also a “c-nty” photo shoot, his words not mine.

Hudson and Sophie are friends and colleagues so they have a shorthand, but what I appreciate about her is that she’s taking the job seriously. She’s talking to Hudson, lovingly and knowingly of course, but she understands the assignment, actually. So she asks the questions that people have been curious about which is why this is interview is an outlier, unlike the usual celebrity-on-celebrity profiles that have become ubiquitous and annoying.

Sophie gets Hudson going about his fashion week appearances, and how he rates his own performance on the runway at Dsquared2, his smoking, all the rumours, the speculation over his height, what it’s been like to be among the celebrities he’s long admired, and also his relationship with Connor and how they’re both actively trying to capitalise on all this hype, but as individuals – who can still support each other and maintain a friendship in the cutthroat competitive business that is Hollywood.

“…Connor and I are aligned. We want to be different artists. We don’t want to be the Olsen twins. We want to be Connor and Hudson, with different filmographies and different deals. As much as we love each other, our friendship doesn’t need to be public. Jacob [Tierney] has that quote: ‘Shane and Ilya are for the public. Connor and Hudson are for themselves.’ And that’s how we feel. People want to see us front row together all the time, but we actively avoid that, because it starts to feel like branding. If you’re always seen together, you become attached at the hip. I FaceTime him whenever I’m free. But if we’re offered the same fashion shows, we’re like, ‘Which one are you going to? Okay, I’ll go to a different one.’ We’re stubborn, selfish artists who want to be our own people. We’re like, ‘I love you. I don’t want to do everything with you.”

It’s an important distinction – that they are NOT Shane and Ilya, as much as the fans want them to be off camera, to the point, almost, of pressure. But this is Hudson saying it out loud, very articulately, that the work they did on the show stands on its own merit, and beyond that, they have other ambitions and goals. Whether or not this message lands is another story.

Hudson is also quite honest about the toll that the last two months has had on him. He’s not complaining but he’s being real about how exhausting instant fame can be. Because of course you want to take advantage of the momentum, when the thing you’ve been dreaming about actually happens. But at the same time, it’s a relentless pace, two straight months of sprinting without a reset. And as Hudson reveals about himself, he cannot stay out of the comments. This is a 25-year-old, formed in the age of social media, one day a nobody and the next day he’s monoculture. What he sees in the comments comes up pretty frequently in the interview. So, to take us back to our celebrity studies, different generation, same issue. Celebrities up until 20 years ago had to deal with the tabloids and train themselves not to engage with them. Celebrities now have to deal with Twitter and TikTok. And it’s not on the newsstand, it’s in their hands, it’s been in their hands since they were children, literally. How and when do they set the boundaries?

Read the full Wonderland interview between Hudson and Sophie here. And join us at The Squawk to discuss his revelations in the interview and, of course, the photos. (App link here)

Photo credits: Davis Bates/Wonderland

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