\n\t\u201cI got hooked immediately by the characters,\u201d Levy says. \u201cI was excited about telling a love story that has unexpected depths to it. As a TV writer, that\u2019s where my heart sings, and that\u2019s where I got really excited to dig in deeper.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Deal is the first book in a 13-book interconnected universe written by Kennedy. Season One of Off Campus centers hockey captain Garret Graham (Belmont Cameli) and music major Hannah Wells (Ella Bright), who start a mutually beneficial fake-dating scheme. Garret needs a philosophy tutor and Hannah needs a boyfriend to capture the interest of her punk-rocker crush, Justin (Josh Heuston). \u201cElla is magnetic,\u201d Kennedy says. \u201cWhen you see her, you feel this joy. She\u2019s so talented and she brought Hannah\u2019s dedication to music. And then Belmont is just so charming. He has Garrett\u2019s charisma and presence. When you see him, you know this guy\u2019s gonna protect her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n
\n\tMost people might assume Off Campus is just a copycat trying to ride Heated Rivalry\u2019s coattails. Yes, they\u2019re both about hockey players falling in love, complete with eight episodes of TV-MA sex. But Levy believes Off Campus\u2019 unique perspective lies in its college setting, which was no gimmick designed to create distance between the two projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe were well underway before Heated Rivalry even sold to HBO Max,\u201d Levy notes. \u201cIt was very exciting to see another hockey romance book on the air. But it didn\u2019t feel too much like they were treading the same water. Our show is so much about the college friendships in the community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAs Kennedy explains, \u201cIn college, you\u2019re dealing with new sexual experiences, leaving home for the first time, developing new friendships. That life stage is an important time in people\u2019s lives. Everything feels heightened and more exciting. And I think that really resonates with people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tBriar University\u2019s hockey bros<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLiane Hentscher\/Prime<\/p>\n
\n\tOff Campus fits the bill, delivering sex-heavy episodes with a TV-MA rating. But the show doesn\u2019t just use sex for the sake of a juiced-up rating. Part of Hannah\u2019s storyline revolves a high-school sexual assault, which impacts how she approaches everything from drinking in public to casual sex. Levy tells Rolling Stone that while she refused to make a version of the show that was PG-13, Hannah\u2019s story and emotional journey made her incredibly picky about what sex scenes made the final cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s important to me that we\u2019re tapping into the sex-positivity of the books, because it\u2019s so beautiful, and I think it\u2019s so important culturally,\u201d Levy says. \u201cBut at no point do I want to put real human beings in front of the camera to do these sex scenes if the scenes are not driving the story forward or furthering character arcs. We spent a lot of time with our intimacy coordinator talking about that, making sure that everyone is on the same page, the cast, all the actors, the director, myself, before even a single frame was shot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd the main storyline of Hannah and Garret falling in love doesn\u2019t mean Levy was willing to make hockey an afterthought. The creative team hired Dave Tomlinson, a former player for the Vancouver Canucks, as \u201chockey coordinator.\u201d Together with stunt coordinator Mike Carpenter, they made sure the plot-driving action kept the integrity of both the story and the game. The team also focused on hiring actors over skaters, then making them plausible as players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tStephen Kalyn, who plays Dean Di Laurentis, was actually already an experienced hockey player. But after the rest of the lineup was set, the entire cast underwent a three-week hockey boot camp. The show also used hockey body doubles for some of the bigger stunts, which meant going straight to the source: the NHL. The skating double for Garrett is current New York Rangers defenseman Vincent Iorio. \u201cGetting the hockey right was really important to us,\u201d Levy says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n
\n\tSince the full first season of Off Campus was released, the show has remained in Prime\u2019s Top 10 series. A second season is already in the works, which Levy says is \u201cvery close\u201d to beginning filming. And while she declines to reveal who\u2019s starring, she\u2019s eager to delve deeper into the world of Briar University.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re really excited about the book-favorite moments that we\u2019re exploring in Season Two,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we want to leave something for the fans to discover.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In hockey, the best advice is to leave everything on the ice. But in the world of hockey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,105687,61,60,12867,282],"class_list":["post-462687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-heated-rivalry","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-prime-video","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}