Hudson Williams Teases ‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2, Worrying He’s “Doing An Impression” Of Shane: “It Was Surreal”

With Shane and Ilya back together, it took a couple of days for the Heated Rivalry stars to get fully back into character. As he discussed Season 2 of the Crave/HBO Max series, currently filming in Toronto, Hudson Williams recounted the “surreal” experience of returning to play Shane Hollander after the wild success of Season 1 last year. “He worked true day one of shooting, I worked day two,” he said at a TIFF Q&A before jokingly telling himself, “Don’t spoil anything, don’t spoil anything.” Williams added of how Storrie recounted his first day, “It was sort of weird, they were all so good, that I was like, ‘Am I good? Am I in it? Am I like doing an impression of Ilya?'” Watch on Deadline The Shane actor admitted that he had the same thought as he returned for his own first day on Season 2, but they soon slipped back into their characters with help from showrunner Jacob Tierney. Hudson Williams answering a question from Rachel Reid about coming back to play Shane in season 2 of “Heated Rivalry” (via lindseys_stuck_at_the_cottage on threads) pic.twitter.com/5Wa21JvLZ6— Hudson Williams Updates (@hudsonwupdates) September 17, 2026 “And the after our first day ones, it came back, thankfully,” added Williams. “Because Jacob does a really good job of making the set feel as tiny as it was in Season 1. It’s all the same crew, which is really great. But it was surreal to step into it.” Deadline recently reported that Justice Smith, Charlie Gillespie, Daniel Diemer, Shaheen Jafargholi, Emily Hampshire, Edvin Ryding, Robert Naylor, Sabrina Jalees, Priyanka, Brendan Morgan, David Tomlinson, Gerry Dee, Michelle Mylett, Lauren Chan and Nick Stahl have been cast in Season 2 of the Crave Original, which is set to premiere in spring 2027. Production began on the sophomore season in Canada last month.