On today’s episode, Variety’s Clayton Davis and Michael Schneider unpack Hollywood’s latest big surprise – the Oscar telecast’s move to YouTube starting in 2029. And Marc Malkin gets the details from "Heated Rivalry" star Connor Storrie about how his big break happened and what he advised his mother about watching the HBO Max hockey drama.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, December eighteenth, twenty
twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Lyttleton. I am co
editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in
LA He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around
the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:30):
we'll unpack the YouTube Oscars deal that has rocked Hollywood's world.
Varieties Clayton Davis and Michael Schneider explain what they know
about what went down, and they debate whether it's a
good idea, and then Mark Malcolm brings us a fun
and slightly risque interview with one of the heart throbs
of the moment, heated rivalry star Connor Story. But before
(00:51):
we get to that, here are a few headlines just
in this morning that you need to know. The first
is that Daily Variety is going to take a winter
break after today's episode, hibernate for a bit and be
back with fresh headlines, questions, and quips on January fifth.
We started this podcast venture on bestiele Day, July fourteenth,
Vivra Daily Variety CBS News is promising us more Town Halls,
(01:14):
hosted by Editor in chief Barry Weiss. They're promising a
series presented under the banner Things that Matter. Future guests
will include Vice President j. D vance Open, AI CEO
Sam Altman, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore. Netflix's sports coverage
just got a whole lot smarter. ESPN alumnus l Duncan
(01:34):
is moving to the streamer. She'll serve as a host
across the company's lineup of live events. Her first outing
will be early next year, when free solo climber Alex
Honnell attempts to scale the tallest building in Taipei. All
of these stories and so much more can be found
on Variety dot com Right now and now it's time
(01:57):
for conversations with Friday journalists about news and trends and
show business. Clayton Davis, Barty's Chief Awards editor, and Michael Schneider,
television editor, joined me for a robust discussion of what
it all means that the Academy Awards will move to
YouTube in twenty twenty nine. We don't agree on everything,
but we do agree that the deal is a masterstroke
(02:18):
for YouTube CEO Neil Mohan, Clayton Davis, and Michael Schneider,
thanks for joining me. Hello, Helloo, no rest for the weary.
Wednesday morning's crazy curveball was Hello YouTube. The Oscars, the
pinnacle of award season is moving to YouTube in twenty
twenty nine. That took a minute to sink in. When
(02:39):
I saw that headline hit my inbox. Clayton, what was
your first reaction when you saw this news?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The Academy had been in close conversations reporting by Variety
with YouTube. I put in an offer. We know NBC
was very, very interesting. ABC was still at the table,
but I think what the Academy needs. It's the thing
that people like myself's have been saying for multiple decades.
We don't care about a long show. We want a
good show. We want the show to evolve. Everyone's consuming
(03:05):
content differently. We need to meet the potential watchers where
they are. I don't subscribe to that movies are dying.
I just think we're not meeting the consumers where they
can find them. So this is a good way to
do that, and I think it really does offer up
a lot of way more pros than any potential.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Con Mike, what about you.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, I think this is a little more dangerous for
the Academy to go because you're leaving a network that
has infrastructure already in place that knows how to put
on a show like this, or going to YouTube that
doesn't have any sort of infrastructure like this whatsoever. Granted
they have three years to put something together, but essentially
this sounds like you're turning over the keys completely out
to the academy to produce the oscars. There's pros and
(03:48):
CODs there, but the cod be There's a reason why
there's been a back and forth over the years between
Disity and Oscars over the best way to produce the shows.
If if you give all that power to just what
edge day you like, the Academy, you could end up
with a lesser show.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
You raise a good point from an am pass perspective,
though might have been very attractive. The idea of like
you will streamline it somewhat in that you're not going
to have that traditional checks and balances of network studio producer.
My first thought was, at this moment in time, YouTube
is so global, it is becoming like a household utility
(04:25):
in so many countries, and so now this will answer
the question where are the oscars. The Oscars are on YouTube.
That will be a significant component. The other thing that
stood out to me was that YouTube is more Switzerland
than Disney, ABC is in the Oscar race. YouTube doesn't
have a studio, does not appear to be in the
(04:46):
mix for a studio anytime soon, although we wouldn't have
thought that they would play for Oscar rights just a
few years ago either. For years there were real restrictions
on who could advertise in the Oscar telecast because the
Academy was so desirous of not looking like it was
favoring any studio or advertiser and all. Do you think
that will have any significant impact on what the Academy
(05:07):
might be able to do with different specials, different rights,
Because you're not in a situation of, oh, are we
favoring Disney titles?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You hit the nail on the head in the sense
of is Switzerland because you don't. Because listen, we knew
at some point Netflix was in the mix, and if
they went to Netflix, I think there would have been
upheaval in this town for.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That same reason. They're heavily invested in We all know
Netflix really really really wants to win a Best Picture Oscar.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It's also freedom to with more promotions, like they get
more creative control. That way, it really takes to guardrails off.
I don't know if at Ceremony one oh one is
going to be like the definitive one, but I think
we are going through an evolution of media. I think
there is a way to do this as a blend
that we can still have it feel traditional and the
(05:57):
way that we know the Oscars to be, but also
be able to meet people where where they are. The
big thing that's going to be interesting. They can't hide
behind viewership anymore in terms of we're gonna know instantly
how many people are watching. But in three years, we
don't even know if YouTube is going to be what
we think YouTube is right now.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
They're evolving, and.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I got to make this point. You know, they're not
just taking the Oscar telecast, They're taking the Oscars as
a whole. They're going to digitize their archives. You know,
they're gonna work with them on streaming the Governor's Awards,
which we'd love to see, the Side Tech Awards, you
get artisans, They're due up there. I'm hopelessly optimistic about
the possibility of this.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Clayton, I could tell that you'd been turning these ideas
over in your head because you came out with a
very strong column not too long after the news broke
and you say, quote, this isn't the Oscars selling out,
This is the Oscars finally being set free. End quote.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
We've never cared about how long the show is. We
just want a good show. It's four hours. It's a
four hour great show. No one's going to be mad
about that, but I'll also be mad at that. Clear
the full course show is ridiculous. I think we don't
want to go too overboard.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You guys are right in that this is all about independence,
and this is about the Academy just tired of of
having to fight Disney over the parameters, and they would
have to fight NBC Universal if it ended up beat
that they would have to fight Netflix. I think in
this case they get to do whatever they want. This
is the freedom. They probably got more money than they
ever would have gotten from NBC Universal Disney at this
point because Disney wasn't going to offer as much money
(07:24):
as they used to.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Mike, let me ask you the other side of this question. Obviously,
this is a loss for ABC. It's something that they
always built a lot of first quarter promotion around what
do you think this means for ABC?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So I think they do. They were thinking it was
going to NBC. They really were convinced that they were
kind of bracing themselves for that because they just they
weren't offering the same license fee as before. And I
don't think the Academy was ever going to go for
a haircut, so they were braced for this, and they
smartly stole away the Grammys from CBS. So they do
have a major award show that's still coming, and they're
finally now airing the Super Bowl again for the first
(07:57):
time in more than fifteen years, so they still have
a lot of big events. But yeah, this is the
marquee event, one of the biggest entertainment shows of the
year in.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
The three dimensional chess game that is media. You do
wonder if Dana Walden and the Disney team they really
played hard for Grammys with the understanding that the Academy
was gonna want a big, old increase.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You see how it was kind of like big event
insurrets about you still have a big show. ABC still
has the Oscars for three more it could include the
Big one hundredth, So in some ways, it's like almost
the series finale of the Oscars, that final big hundredth
event to that. Who knows what happens after that. I
already have an idea the first season of the new
Oscars on YouTube. At the very start of the show,
(08:39):
mister Beast offers a million dollars to any contender who
just drops out of the race right then.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I think the same way like Netflix came on
to the scene with House of Cards and like people
just really didn't understand what they were doing. YouTube has
branded itself as TV.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
We're still waiting to see what the TV Academy does
with the Emmys. And I do wonder now if something
like this is going to convince them to also do
something that's a little out of the box, a little revolutionary.
This may be something that now forces them to think, well,
we got to do our own YouTube deal. We got
to do our own like crazy new deal. So I'll
be interested to see. I don't think they'll just got
to go back to a traditional wheel format the way
(09:17):
they've had for the past year decades.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
There is no world in which Neil Mohan is not
getting a heavy, heavy pitch right now for that heavy deal.
That I will say with just on informed speculation here,
I have missed no opportunity to remind people that Neil
Mohan was on the cover of Variety in March of
this past year, and he's been making us look good
(09:39):
for it ever since. I really don't think this is
an exaggeration this. I don't think this would have happened
five years ago. But that just tells you how much
YouTube is evolved, especially YouTube TV. YouTube TV is a
virtual cable operator that has strengthened Neil Mohan and relations
with people at Google and YouTube that has definitely strengthened
their ties to traditional Hollywood because they're doing carriage deals.
(10:03):
As we know, we saw a big battle between Disney
and YouTube, a carriage fight that lasted what almost two weeks.
This does show that YouTube, for all its newness, is
becoming more and more integrated into the more traditional fabric
of television and film. What a world, What a world.
I am so grateful to have great colleagues like you
that are so insightful and can turn out columns in
(10:26):
record time.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think Mike, she went an oscar.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Now he's good, say mohab mo oscars.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And now here's Mark Malcolm With his chat with Connor's story,
the Heated Rivalry star takes Mark through his meteoric rise
over the past few months thanks to the success of
the HBO Max hockey drama Thanks Cynthia.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Heated Rivalry is the show of the Moment, an adaptation
of Rachel Reid's career romance novel series Game Changers. The
series stars Connor's story as Ilia Rosenoff and Hudson Williams
as Shane Hollander. The two men are not only professional
hockey champions, but they've also been having a hot and
steamy and very secretive, years long affair. When the first
(11:09):
two episodes dropped over Thanksgiving weekend on HBO Max, the
streamer acquired the series from Canadian streamer Crave. The show
became an instant hit, with word of the soapy queer
drama exploding on social media. Memes and gifts zeroed in
on the romance, the sports, and more often than not,
the sex. I caught up with story just the other
(11:31):
day from his Los Angeles area home.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Like I didn't even know that my butt was a
topic of conversation until you know, I had so many
random people sent screenshots of my ass on Twitter.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Story, who grew up in Odessa, Texas, was just another
actor living paycheck to paycheck when he booked he did Rivalry.
In fact, he was on the verge of losing his
watering job at Laurel Grill in Los Angeles when the
offer to play Rosenoff came in.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
He sat me down, being like, this is not acceptable,
Like this is this is a final morning if if
anything like this ever happens again, like you're out.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Minutes later, his agent called to tell him he booked.
He did Rivalry.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Yeah, he worked a few more shifts and then was
kind of like the.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Chemistry between Story and Williams is electric. The two felt
it right away during their chemistry read Well. They work
closely with an intimacy coordinator for their sex scenes. Story
says there is some improvising because the two men are
so comfortable with each other.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
So I'm like, let's go all the way. I'll wear
the least amount of clothes, I'll do the most amount
of kisses, and I'm it literally just but me being
it made me and Hudson be like, is it cool
if I touch you here? And I'm like, yeah, touch
me anywhere. I don't care. You know, some all those
little intricate kisses, touches in between moments, a lot of
that is just us organically beating into that moment.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Just an hour or two before our conversation, HBO, Max
and Crave announced that He did Rivalry was renewed for
a second season.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Those books are literally sold out everywhere. They're like number
one on some of the book charts, which is crazy.
I think that proves that these are obviously really well
constructed stories that a lot of people are really into.
So I think you kind of the only way to
make this make sense is to stick to the books,
you know, and also honor the fandom of the people
(13:16):
who are really spearheading this whole thing.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
One person who hasn't watched the entirety of the first
season is Story's mother for good reason.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
She was like, I can't watch the sex scenes yet,
and I was like, you don't ever have to watch
the second Like, like, I don't need you to watch that.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
For more of my interview with Connor's story, head over
to Variety dot Com and coming tomorrow my first interview
with his co star Hudson Williams. Happy holidays.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. Don't miss Clayton Davis's latest column, why
Oscar voters love villains, just not truly evil ones. Don't
forget to check out variety 's V one twenty list
of the industry's most powerful executive leaders. You'll find that
list popping up early next week on Variety dot com
(14:09):
and on January second. Don't miss the rollout of Variety's
ten Directors to Watch feature. These are the helmer names
you'll need to know in the coming years. We love
to hear from our listeners, so please send thoughts, gripes,
and other feedback about Daily Variety two podcasts at Variety
dot com before we go. Congrats to the one hundred
and five employees at UTA that have been promoted The
(14:31):
Talent Agency unveiled promotions on MOSS at departments across the agency,
Clutch Sports Media Link and other units. Thanks for listening.
This episode was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton,
with contributions from Clayton Davis, Michael Schneider, and Mark Malkin
stick Snick's hick Picks. Please leave us a review at
(14:51):
the podcast platform of your choice, and please tune in
on January fifth for a fresh episode of Daily Variety
and Happy holidays, everyone, Blessed, bs all.
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, December eighteenth, twenty
twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Lyttleton. I am co
editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in
LA He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around
the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:30):
we'll unpack the YouTube Oscars deal that has rocked Hollywood's world.
Varieties Clayton Davis and Michael Schneider explain what they know
about what went down, and they debate whether it's a
good idea, and then Mark Malcolm brings us a fun
and slightly risque interview with one of the heart throbs
of the moment, heated rivalry star Connor Story. But before
(00:51):
we get to that, here are a few headlines just
in this morning that you need to know. The first
is that Daily Variety is going to take a winter
break after today's episode, hibernate for a bit and be
back with fresh headlines, questions, and quips on January fifth.
We started this podcast venture on bestiele Day, July fourteenth,
Vivra Daily Variety CBS News is promising us more Town Halls,
(01:14):
hosted by Editor in chief Barry Weiss. They're promising a
series presented under the banner Things that Matter. Future guests
will include Vice President j. D vance Open, AI CEO
Sam Altman, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore. Netflix's sports coverage
just got a whole lot smarter. ESPN alumnus l Duncan
(01:34):
is moving to the streamer. She'll serve as a host
across the company's lineup of live events. Her first outing
will be early next year, when free solo climber Alex
Honnell attempts to scale the tallest building in Taipei. All
of these stories and so much more can be found
on Variety dot com Right now and now it's time
(01:57):
for conversations with Friday journalists about news and trends and
show business. Clayton Davis, Barty's Chief Awards editor, and Michael Schneider,
television editor, joined me for a robust discussion of what
it all means that the Academy Awards will move to
YouTube in twenty twenty nine. We don't agree on everything,
but we do agree that the deal is a masterstroke
(02:18):
for YouTube CEO Neil Mohan, Clayton Davis, and Michael Schneider,
thanks for joining me. Hello, Helloo, no rest for the weary.
Wednesday morning's crazy curveball was Hello YouTube. The Oscars, the
pinnacle of award season is moving to YouTube in twenty
twenty nine. That took a minute to sink in. When
(02:39):
I saw that headline hit my inbox. Clayton, what was
your first reaction when you saw this news?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The Academy had been in close conversations reporting by Variety
with YouTube. I put in an offer. We know NBC
was very, very interesting. ABC was still at the table,
but I think what the Academy needs. It's the thing
that people like myself's have been saying for multiple decades.
We don't care about a long show. We want a
good show. We want the show to evolve. Everyone's consuming
(03:05):
content differently. We need to meet the potential watchers where
they are. I don't subscribe to that movies are dying.
I just think we're not meeting the consumers where they
can find them. So this is a good way to
do that, and I think it really does offer up
a lot of way more pros than any potential.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Con Mike, what about you.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, I think this is a little more dangerous for
the Academy to go because you're leaving a network that
has infrastructure already in place that knows how to put
on a show like this, or going to YouTube that
doesn't have any sort of infrastructure like this whatsoever. Granted
they have three years to put something together, but essentially
this sounds like you're turning over the keys completely out
to the academy to produce the oscars. There's pros and
(03:48):
CODs there, but the cod be There's a reason why
there's been a back and forth over the years between
Disity and Oscars over the best way to produce the shows.
If if you give all that power to just what
edge day you like, the Academy, you could end up
with a lesser show.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
You raise a good point from an am pass perspective,
though might have been very attractive. The idea of like
you will streamline it somewhat in that you're not going
to have that traditional checks and balances of network studio producer.
My first thought was, at this moment in time, YouTube
is so global, it is becoming like a household utility
(04:25):
in so many countries, and so now this will answer
the question where are the oscars. The Oscars are on YouTube.
That will be a significant component. The other thing that
stood out to me was that YouTube is more Switzerland
than Disney, ABC is in the Oscar race. YouTube doesn't
have a studio, does not appear to be in the
(04:46):
mix for a studio anytime soon, although we wouldn't have
thought that they would play for Oscar rights just a
few years ago either. For years there were real restrictions
on who could advertise in the Oscar telecast because the
Academy was so desirous of not looking like it was
favoring any studio or advertiser and all. Do you think
that will have any significant impact on what the Academy
(05:07):
might be able to do with different specials, different rights,
Because you're not in a situation of, oh, are we
favoring Disney titles?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You hit the nail on the head in the sense
of is Switzerland because you don't. Because listen, we knew
at some point Netflix was in the mix, and if
they went to Netflix, I think there would have been
upheaval in this town for.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That same reason. They're heavily invested in We all know
Netflix really really really wants to win a Best Picture Oscar.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It's also freedom to with more promotions, like they get
more creative control. That way, it really takes to guardrails off.
I don't know if at Ceremony one oh one is
going to be like the definitive one, but I think
we are going through an evolution of media. I think
there is a way to do this as a blend
that we can still have it feel traditional and the
(05:57):
way that we know the Oscars to be, but also
be able to meet people where where they are. The
big thing that's going to be interesting. They can't hide
behind viewership anymore in terms of we're gonna know instantly
how many people are watching. But in three years, we
don't even know if YouTube is going to be what
we think YouTube is right now.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
They're evolving, and.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I got to make this point. You know, they're not
just taking the Oscar telecast, They're taking the Oscars as
a whole. They're going to digitize their archives. You know,
they're gonna work with them on streaming the Governor's Awards,
which we'd love to see, the Side Tech Awards, you
get artisans, They're due up there. I'm hopelessly optimistic about
the possibility of this.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Clayton, I could tell that you'd been turning these ideas
over in your head because you came out with a
very strong column not too long after the news broke
and you say, quote, this isn't the Oscars selling out,
This is the Oscars finally being set free. End quote.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
We've never cared about how long the show is. We
just want a good show. It's four hours. It's a
four hour great show. No one's going to be mad
about that, but I'll also be mad at that. Clear
the full course show is ridiculous. I think we don't
want to go too overboard.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You guys are right in that this is all about independence,
and this is about the Academy just tired of of
having to fight Disney over the parameters, and they would
have to fight NBC Universal if it ended up beat
that they would have to fight Netflix. I think in
this case they get to do whatever they want. This
is the freedom. They probably got more money than they
ever would have gotten from NBC Universal Disney at this
point because Disney wasn't going to offer as much money
(07:24):
as they used to.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Mike, let me ask you the other side of this question. Obviously,
this is a loss for ABC. It's something that they
always built a lot of first quarter promotion around what
do you think this means for ABC?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So I think they do. They were thinking it was
going to NBC. They really were convinced that they were
kind of bracing themselves for that because they just they
weren't offering the same license fee as before. And I
don't think the Academy was ever going to go for
a haircut, so they were braced for this, and they
smartly stole away the Grammys from CBS. So they do
have a major award show that's still coming, and they're
finally now airing the Super Bowl again for the first
(07:57):
time in more than fifteen years, so they still have
a lot of big events. But yeah, this is the
marquee event, one of the biggest entertainment shows of the
year in.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
The three dimensional chess game that is media. You do
wonder if Dana Walden and the Disney team they really
played hard for Grammys with the understanding that the Academy
was gonna want a big, old increase.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You see how it was kind of like big event
insurrets about you still have a big show. ABC still
has the Oscars for three more it could include the
Big one hundredth, So in some ways, it's like almost
the series finale of the Oscars, that final big hundredth
event to that. Who knows what happens after that. I
already have an idea the first season of the new
Oscars on YouTube. At the very start of the show,
(08:39):
mister Beast offers a million dollars to any contender who
just drops out of the race right then.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I think the same way like Netflix came on
to the scene with House of Cards and like people
just really didn't understand what they were doing. YouTube has
branded itself as TV.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
We're still waiting to see what the TV Academy does
with the Emmys. And I do wonder now if something
like this is going to convince them to also do
something that's a little out of the box, a little revolutionary.
This may be something that now forces them to think, well,
we got to do our own YouTube deal. We got
to do our own like crazy new deal. So I'll
be interested to see. I don't think they'll just got
to go back to a traditional wheel format the way
(09:17):
they've had for the past year decades.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
There is no world in which Neil Mohan is not
getting a heavy, heavy pitch right now for that heavy deal.
That I will say with just on informed speculation here,
I have missed no opportunity to remind people that Neil
Mohan was on the cover of Variety in March of
this past year, and he's been making us look good
(09:39):
for it ever since. I really don't think this is
an exaggeration this. I don't think this would have happened
five years ago. But that just tells you how much
YouTube is evolved, especially YouTube TV. YouTube TV is a
virtual cable operator that has strengthened Neil Mohan and relations
with people at Google and YouTube that has definitely strengthened
their ties to traditional Hollywood because they're doing carriage deals.
(10:03):
As we know, we saw a big battle between Disney
and YouTube, a carriage fight that lasted what almost two weeks.
This does show that YouTube, for all its newness, is
becoming more and more integrated into the more traditional fabric
of television and film. What a world, What a world.
I am so grateful to have great colleagues like you
that are so insightful and can turn out columns in
(10:26):
record time.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think Mike, she went an oscar.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Now he's good, say mohab mo oscars.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And now here's Mark Malcolm With his chat with Connor's story,
the Heated Rivalry star takes Mark through his meteoric rise
over the past few months thanks to the success of
the HBO Max hockey drama Thanks Cynthia.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Heated Rivalry is the show of the Moment, an adaptation
of Rachel Reid's career romance novel series Game Changers. The
series stars Connor's story as Ilia Rosenoff and Hudson Williams
as Shane Hollander. The two men are not only professional
hockey champions, but they've also been having a hot and
steamy and very secretive, years long affair. When the first
(11:09):
two episodes dropped over Thanksgiving weekend on HBO Max, the
streamer acquired the series from Canadian streamer Crave. The show
became an instant hit, with word of the soapy queer
drama exploding on social media. Memes and gifts zeroed in
on the romance, the sports, and more often than not,
the sex. I caught up with story just the other
(11:31):
day from his Los Angeles area home.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Like I didn't even know that my butt was a
topic of conversation until you know, I had so many
random people sent screenshots of my ass on Twitter.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Story, who grew up in Odessa, Texas, was just another
actor living paycheck to paycheck when he booked he did Rivalry.
In fact, he was on the verge of losing his
watering job at Laurel Grill in Los Angeles when the
offer to play Rosenoff came in.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
He sat me down, being like, this is not acceptable,
Like this is this is a final morning if if
anything like this ever happens again, like you're out.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Minutes later, his agent called to tell him he booked.
He did Rivalry.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Yeah, he worked a few more shifts and then was
kind of like the.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Chemistry between Story and Williams is electric. The two felt
it right away during their chemistry read Well. They work
closely with an intimacy coordinator for their sex scenes. Story
says there is some improvising because the two men are
so comfortable with each other.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
So I'm like, let's go all the way. I'll wear
the least amount of clothes, I'll do the most amount
of kisses, and I'm it literally just but me being
it made me and Hudson be like, is it cool
if I touch you here? And I'm like, yeah, touch
me anywhere. I don't care. You know, some all those
little intricate kisses, touches in between moments, a lot of
that is just us organically beating into that moment.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Just an hour or two before our conversation, HBO, Max
and Crave announced that He did Rivalry was renewed for
a second season.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Those books are literally sold out everywhere. They're like number
one on some of the book charts, which is crazy.
I think that proves that these are obviously really well
constructed stories that a lot of people are really into.
So I think you kind of the only way to
make this make sense is to stick to the books,
you know, and also honor the fandom of the people
(13:16):
who are really spearheading this whole thing.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
One person who hasn't watched the entirety of the first
season is Story's mother for good reason.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
She was like, I can't watch the sex scenes yet,
and I was like, you don't ever have to watch
the second Like, like, I don't need you to watch that.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
For more of my interview with Connor's story, head over
to Variety dot Com and coming tomorrow my first interview
with his co star Hudson Williams. Happy holidays.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. Don't miss Clayton Davis's latest column, why
Oscar voters love villains, just not truly evil ones. Don't
forget to check out variety 's V one twenty list
of the industry's most powerful executive leaders. You'll find that
list popping up early next week on Variety dot com
(14:09):
and on January second. Don't miss the rollout of Variety's
ten Directors to Watch feature. These are the helmer names
you'll need to know in the coming years. We love
to hear from our listeners, so please send thoughts, gripes,
and other feedback about Daily Variety two podcasts at Variety
dot com before we go. Congrats to the one hundred
and five employees at UTA that have been promoted The
(14:31):
Talent Agency unveiled promotions on MOSS at departments across the agency,
Clutch Sports Media Link and other units. Thanks for listening.
This episode was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton,
with contributions from Clayton Davis, Michael Schneider, and Mark Malkin
stick Snick's hick Picks. Please leave us a review at
(14:51):
the podcast platform of your choice, and please tune in
on January fifth for a fresh episode of Daily Variety
and Happy holidays, everyone, Blessed, bs all.
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