“Heated Rivalry” Season 2 production is nearly underway, and the Crave series has found its latest stars to play Harris Drover and Troy Barrett from Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series.
Justice Smith (“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t”) and Charlie Gillespie (“One Night Only,” “Splitsville”) will play Harris and Troy, respectively. The duo joins Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie in leading roles for the new season, which is set to debut on HBO Max in spring 2027.
“Rachel Reid has given us two beautifully layered characters in Harris and Troy who you can’t help but root for,” series creator Jacob Tierney and executive producer Brendan Brady said in a joint statement. “From the start of the casting process, we knew we were looking for actors who could create something truly special together and bring that same depth and heart to the screen.”
“Justice and Charlie do exactly that,” they added. “They immediately connected with the vulnerability and resilience at the core of these characters, bringing an instinctive understanding of who Harris and Troy are.”
Harris and Troy’s budding relationship drives Reid’s novel “Role Model,” the fifth installment of her “Game Changers” series. Gillespie will star as Troy, a professional hockey player who was traded to the Ottawa Centaurs, the team for which Ilya was captain. Smith has been cast as Harris Drover, the team’s social media manager.
Season 1 broke records at HBO Max, booming in popularity on the streamer without any marketing campaign around it. The Canadian series scored a U.S. release just days before it was set to premiere up north.
“Heated Rivalry” chronicles the torrid connection between Boston-based Russian team captain Ilya Rosanov (Storrie) and Montreal star Shane Hollander (Williams) as their secret sexual encounters turn into a more intimate, emotional relationship.
Season 2 is gearing up for production in Canada, and the production asked fans for space to do the best work they can. The message came Tuesday following a weekend where “Heated Rivalry” stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams were spotted around Toronto in the lead-up to production on the sports romance series.
Tierney has said that Season 2 will be adapted from Reid’s sixth novel in the series, “The Long Game”, which continues Shane and Ilya’s story, but source material for Troy and Harris’ relationship will come from her fifth novel “Role Model.”
The series was created by Jacob Tierney and was produced by Canada’s Bell Media for Crave. It is distributed in the United States and Australia by HBO Max. The second season is slated to stream in the U.S. on HBO Max in spring 2027.
Gillespie is represented by Vanderwerff Talent, David Dean Management and Meyer & Downs, LLP. Smith is represented by WME and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.
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