Hudson Williams’s Ex-Hockey Player Film Raises a Rivalry Parallel

By Grace Kim

Hudson Williams is writing a new film with an ex-hockey player as one character, the actor said in an Entertainment Weekly interview for Yaga, which premiered on Oct. 23. “We’re getting tripped up on it,” Williams said, referring to the project’s parallel with Heated Rivalry, the Canadian queer hockey romance that brought him fame over the past year.

“I’m writing a movie right now, but one character is an ex-hockey player,” he said.

“We were like, ‘But if we have this hockey player and then you’ve done a hockey show…’ We’re getting tripped up on it and we’re considering other sports, but for some reason this character just made way more sense being an ex-hockey player.”

“It’s almost like you have to bust through the prison of your own mind or construct of your own mind.”

His explanation separates the snag into character logic and association. The ex-hockey player made more sense to the writers, while Heated Rivalry makes the same detail feel repetitive. His image of breaking through a “prison of your own mind” casts creative fit as a constraint: changing the backstory may require overcoming resistance to the first idea.

What does the Heated Rivalry parallel change for the film?

For the project, the parallel changes an early creative decision. Williams says he and his collaborators are weighing other sports, even though the ex-hockey player remains the version that made more sense to them.

For audiences, the parallel supplies no additional story information. Williams did not elaborate on the project’s nature, and the interview offered no title, plot, cast, format, production schedule or release date. The concrete commitment is narrow: he is writing a movie, and one character is a former hockey player.

The Entertainment Weekly conversation arose around Yaga, a Canadian witchy detective-thriller that stars Williams. He was responding to co-star Carrie-Anne Moss, who had objected to the show’s references to the John Wick franchise.

The reference involved her real-life friend Keanu Reeves and the franchise associated with him. Williams did not say that the new movie connects to Yaga, Moss, Reeves or John Wick.

Entertainment Weekly traced Williams’s pre-fame work. Before the success of the Canadian queer hockey romance, he wrote and directed several short films, including Soakers, Buttons and Inside Augustine Mendoza’s Quotidian Apartment.

Those credits show prior writing and directing experience, while the interview identifies Williams as a writer on the new movie but gives him no stated directing role. They provide context for the project, not a detailed account of its development.

The same recent-work slate includes Heated Rivalry: production on its second season began in August, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Entertainment Weekly also said Williams will appear in Apparatus, a dark comedic thriller, opposite Dylan O’Brien. He will also appear in Tyrant, an ensemble culinary thriller, with Charlize Theron, Julia Garner, Demi Moore and Omar Apollo.

The coming decision over the sport will show whether the premise can stand apart from the series that made Williams famous. Without a title, timeline or production update, the ex-hockey player remains both the project’s clearest concrete element and its unresolved creative constraint.