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<\/p>\n\u201cI think a week before the show dropped, [we found out] that we had gotten US distribution,\u201d says Storrie. New Zealand and Spain have since been added to the list. \u201cThe whole thing has not made any sense, and has just been really overwhelming.\u201d To be clear, it\u2019s a good kind of overwhelming. Storrie calls Heated Rivalry\u2019s rapid climb \u201cthe best-case scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like your dream has come true and you can\u2019t really believe it,\u201d agrees Williams. \u201cI\u2019m just so glad it can be in front of more eyes. I think this story does transcend language and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photographer Parker Burr.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s been a whirlwind, both Storrie and Williams have been preparing for this moment for a long time. As a mixed-race child\u2014his mother is Korean, his father is British and Dutch\u2014growing up in British Columbia, Williams had a lot of big dreams, some more achievable than others. \u201cI wanted to become an NBA player,\u201d he says. \u201cMy mom said, \u2018You can\u2019t dunk. Give up on this dream.\u2019\u201d So he came up with another: \u201cOkay, then I\u2019ll become an actor or a UFC fighter.\u201d His mother was in favor of the former.<\/p>\n
So Williams \u201cquit my dreams of becoming the best NBA player ever, and then I wanted to become Daniel Day-Lewis.\u201d He can\u2019t help but add a self-deprecating joke: \u201cThat\u2019s also not quite panning out. But I\u2019m here.\u201d At 24 years old, maybe it\u2019s too early to say.<\/p>\n
Before landing the role of dutiful Shane Hollander, Williams was starring in short films and landing one-episode guest roles on procedurals like Tracker and Allegiance. While he appreciated the work, he\u2019d been waiting for his big break when Heated Rivalry came his way. \u201cI have been manifesting this,\u201d says Williams.<\/p>\n
Unlike his costar, Storrie has always had a one-track mind. \u201cMy mom says, ever since I could speak, I have always wanted to be in film,\u201d says Storrie. As a kid in Odessa, Texas, he went to a performing-arts school\u2014to learn how to act, and perhaps also to keep him out of trouble. \u201cWe did not live in the best part of town,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was a push to help these neighborhoods where there was either crime or there was a significant amount of violence or poverty; they were trying to give all of us a break from that and were like, \u2018Go tap dance or something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Photographer Parker Burr.<\/p>\n
Even so, the 25-year-old remembers his dreams repeatedly being met with skepticism rather than encouragement. When he was about seven or eight, his aunt \u201cdid the \u2018Okay, well, when that doesn\u2019t work out, what are you going to do?\u2019 thing,\u201d he remembers. Like any good actor, he did have a backup plan. \u201cI genuinely thought for a second and I said, \u2018I\u2019m going to be an underwear model if [acting] doesn\u2019t work out,\u2019\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cI think that shows how willing I was to be perceived from such a young age.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think a week before the show dropped, [we found out] that we had gotten US distribution,\u201d says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[3042,49,48,75,75891,5862,8359,21834,5131,348],"class_list":["post-340985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-awards","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-gay","tag-hbo","tag-lgbtq","tag-romance","tag-streaming","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}