Hudson Williams Gets Honest About Intense Fan Response to 'Heated Rivalry,' Sympathizes With BTS & The Beatles

Hudson Williams is addressing all the attention he’s been getting with the success of Heated Rivalry, in which he plays Shane Hollander to Connor Storrie‘s Ilya Rozanov.

The 24-year-old actor sat down for Evan Ross Katz‘s Shut Up Evan podcast.

During the conversation, he talked about the massive popularity of the LGBTQ+ series and the fandom that’s come along with the show’s skyrocketing success.

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“It doesn’t feel like anything you could prepare for,” Hudson said.

“It’s a different existence now…it’s a different life,” he added of the attention.

“When you see these people, like when you see The Beatles, when you see BTS, there’s an element of ‘that’s not another human that’s a celebrity’ which exists in this weird definition that is very abstract…I thought I could empathize with it, but I couldn’t fully feel what they were going through until now. And now it’s just brought this wave of sympathy, because it’s not easy having paparazzi and people constantly go ‘Sign this, do this!’”

“Although it feels good to have people admire your work, but we go to pockets of places that I never thought we would be found. We’re still pull aside for a photo…lunch gets interrupted, and you have to look nice,” he added.

“A lot of me wearing the glasses too, like, I just don’t want to have an eye twitch. I don’t want them to see my three hours of sleep. I always thought it was a stuck-up move, like, ‘What a prima donna with their glasses on.’ And now, I’m like, I just want to be able to have a semblance of privacy.”

“I can’t possibly sign everyone’s thing, talk to everyone, and I can’t steal away ’cause then also there’s an element of selfishness. If I were to stay and sign everything, the security — they have other jobs to do,” he noted.

“They have to take other people into the building, they have to get off the clock. My publicist needs to get somewhere. My agents need to get somewhere. It can become a selfish act, not a generous one, to just stand there and meet everyone. It’s a weird balance, and there’s so much minutia that I never could possibly imagine exists in this world of celebrity.”

“It’s hard to complain about because for a long time I’ve been an actor, a cliché of an actor, you know, struggling server, paycheck to paycheck, just desperate for any role, let alone a good one. I was just talking with one of my agents yesterday, and she said, Connor and I have had to learn what a lot of actors get in five years in like 30 days,” Hudson added.

“So…it’s learn quick, trying to build a sense of direction.”

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