What’s next for Connor Storrie after Heated Rivalry

Connor Storrie’s leap from Culver City waiter to HBO Max lead has been fast enough to rattle even his own timeline. Heated Rivalry turned the 26-year-old into the face of a queer hockey romance that dominated U.S. streaming charts last winter, and the question now is which doors that visibility actually opens.

Season two filming schedule

Storrie and co-star Hudson Williams are locked into a three-season deal, so cameras rolling in Ontario this August already set the next public milestone. Season two adapts The Long Game with chunks of Role Model folded in, aiming for a spring 2027 HBO Max drop.

Production is moving quicker than the first season, partly because the writers room has more runway and partly because the network wants to keep the cultural heat from fading. New cast additions—Milla Jovovich as a therapist, Justice Smith, and Kevin Zegers as Coach Weibe—signal an expanded ensemble without stretching the budget past its Canadian cap.

Storrie’s new buzzcut, debuted over the summer, is already the subject of fan videos comparing the old blond curls to the current look. The change is less vanity than practicality; the shorter style photographs cleaner under hockey-helmet lighting.

Emmy nomination and SNL slot

The February 28, 2026 SNL episode gave Storrie a national comedy credit and an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. Mumford & Sons performed, but the monologue sketches about rival hockey players went viral within hours.

Because Heated Rivalry is a Canadian production, the series itself remains Emmy-ineligible, which makes the guest nod the clearest awards signal so far. CAA signed him in early 2026, timing that matches the uptick in offers rather than preceding it.

Storrie attended the Creative Arts Emmys with his mother, Linda, a detail that trended on red-carpet feeds. The appearance read as low-key compared with the tailored suits around them, but it reinforced the narrative of overnight fame still anchored to family.

Film slate diversification

April X, a low-budget psychological sci-fi thriller, is slated for a late-September U.S. release in more than five hundred theaters. Storrie plays one half of a troubled twin set opposite Lilly Krug, a part that lets him trade romantic tension for genre unease.

Sarah Polley’s adaptation of The Bell Jar wrapped earlier this year; Storrie appears as Marco, the character who attempts to assault the protagonist. The role sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from Ilya Rozanov and is already being read as proof he is willing to accept unsympathetic parts.

Post-production also includes two A24 titles—Peaked and Please—plus Craig Zobel’s indie thriller Turpentine opposite Melissa McCarthy. The cluster gives him four features in varying states of visibility before season two even premieres.

Guest arc on Criminal Minds

Four episodes of Criminal Minds: Evolution dropped on Paramount+ in May and June, casting Storrie as Lance Kingston in a subplot that runs parallel to the main case. The arc tested whether audiences would accept him outside prestige or romantic packaging.

Early tracking suggests the episodes held steady numbers in the 18–34 demo, a group that overlaps with the Heated Rivalry streaming audience. Paramount has not yet confirmed a return, but the door remains open for future crossovers.

Audio and fan-service projects

Ember & Ice, the Quinn audio erotica series reuniting Storrie with Hudson Williams as rival fae princes, launched quietly in late 2025 and still charts in the platform’s top ten. The format requires no location work and feeds directly into the same shipping communities that power the hockey show.

Storrie has described the recordings as an exercise in vocal control learned from his Groundlings improv days. The side project keeps his voice in circulation between television seasons without competing for screen time.

Directorial ambitions

Storrie’s feature debut, Transaction Planet, was shot on iPhone and is now in post-production. He wrote and directed the film, continuing a pattern of small-scale projects he started with shorts before Heated Rivalry began.

The choice to stay behind the camera on at least one project per year is deliberate. In recent interviews he has stated a preference for swinging big over playing it safe, a stance that aligns with the risk profile of an actor still building a filmography.

Public image recalibration

The buzzcut and the darker film roles both point to an attempt to widen the lane beyond romantic-lead shorthand. Early fan discourse on X framed the haircut as a loss; later posts reframed it as preparation for heavier material.

Storrie’s pre-fame résumé—wait shifts at Laurel Grill, bit parts in Joker: Folie à Deux and Tiny Beautiful Things—is now referenced in profiles as proof the rise was not engineered by a long publicity campaign. That backstory helps maintain an underdog perception even as offers multiply.

Representation and leverage

CAA’s early-2026 signing coincided with the first batch of film attachments, suggesting the agency arrived once the market had already priced in his value. The deal gives him access to studio packages that were previously out of reach for a Canadian series lead.

Storrie’s quotes about “accepting the worst case” during auditions circulate as evidence he is managing expectations internally. That posture reads as pragmatic rather than self-deprecating, especially when stacked against the rapid calendar of upcoming releases.

Market timing

The 2026–2027 window places Storrie in three prestige films, one network guest arc, and season two of the series that made him recognizable. The overlap is compressed, but the variety reduces the chance that any single project defines him.

Whether the strategy sustains depends on how U.S. audiences respond to the darker characters in The Bell Jar and April X. Early tracking data will arrive before season two drops, giving him a mid-cycle read on which lane is widening fastest.

Next moves

Storrie is balancing a locked television commitment with a deliberate push into features that test range. The next twelve months will show whether the audience that discovered him through romance will follow him into psychological thrillers and prestige adaptations, or whether the hockey series remains the role they return to first.