{"id":848517,"date":"2026-08-08T23:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/848517\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T23:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:50:10","slug":"rachel-reid-appears-to-dismiss-heated-rivalry-season-2-casting-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/848517\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Reid Appears To Dismiss ‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2 Casting Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Heated Rivalry<\/a> hits the ice for another season with some new teammates, there\u2019s bound to be some opinions about the casting choices for the book series\u2019 beloved characters.<\/p>\n

Following the news that Justice Smith<\/a> and Charlie Gillespie<\/a> have been cast in Season 2<\/a>, author Rachel Reid<\/a> appeared to respond to negative online reactions to the news that the actors will portray Harris Drover and Troy Barrett, respectively, the couple from Role Model, the fifth book in her bestselling Game Changer series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThinking about all the people last summer who told me the casting for llya and Shane was wrong and bad\u2026\u201d wrote Reid on her Instagram Story with a side-eye selfie.<\/p>\n

Based on the second book in the series, Season 1 of Heated Rivalry became an overnight hit largely due to Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams\u2019 steamy performances as Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, launching the actors\u2019 profiles in Hollywood as well.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Deadline reported that Smith and Gillespie have been cast as leads in Season 2<\/a> of the Crave Original, which is set to premiere in spring 2027. Production began<\/a> on the sophomore season in Canada earlier this week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the Role Model book, Troy Barrett is a hockey player on Ilya\u2019s team with a history of bullying, while Harris Drover is the team\u2019s cheerful social media manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cRachel Reid has given us two beautifully layered characters in Harris and Troy who you can\u2019t help but root for,\u201d said series creator Jacob Tierney and fellow executive producer Brendan Brady. \u201cFrom 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 immediately connected with the vulnerability and resilience at the core of these characters, bringing an instinctive understanding of who Harris and Troy are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Heated Rivalry hits the ice for another season with some new teammates, there\u2019s bound to be some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,419449,134,187023,288068,219207,427],"class_list":["post-848517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charlie-gillespie","tag-entertainment","tag-heated-rivalry","tag-justice-smith","tag-rachel-reid","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}