Hudson Williams, beloved by millions as Shane Hollander in the television phenomenon “Heated Rivalry,” deserves all the good coming his way, friends and former professors say.

The newly-minted star, 24, has been busy – starring in one of the most-watched series of 2025 (and now 2026), making his late night talk show debut, walking in his first fashion show in Milan and wielding the Olympic torch alongside his co-star Connor Storrie.

But years before Williams skyrocketed to fame for his role as a timid, ripped and secretly queer hockey player, he waited tables at an Italian restaurant while writing, directing and acting in short films with friends at Langara College in Vancouver. These humble shorts, made with shoestring budgets and crew, now have hundreds of thousands of YouTube views thanks to “Heated Rivalry” fever.

Zack Fonzovs, a close friend who appears alongside Williams in many of the early films, recalls meeting him in December 2021, when Fonzovs was in need of a male lead for his latest short.

“I said to him, ‘You’re going to bite off her finger and suck it like it’s the blood of Christ,'” Fonzovs tells USA TODAY, recalling one of the film’s scenes. “It’s a very profane moment, and he (Williams) just looked at me like he was ready to bite her finger right then and there. After that, I was like, ‘Oh my god. He’s so passionate.’ I could just tell by how willing he was and how hungry he was.”

As Williams storms Hollywood’s A List, Fonzovs says it’s been surreal.

“To hear the whole world have opinions of my boy, it’s weird,” Fonzovs says with a laugh.

A filmmaker in front, behind the camera

Though he is known for his work in front of the camera, Williams’ education at Langara allowed him to explore filmmaking too. A year after filming Fonzovs’ short, Williams asked him to help direct and costar in his first project, “Snow Angel.”

“He’s a tremendous, tremendous producer,” Fonzovs says.

On a YouTube channel with more than 50,900 subscribers, as of Feb. 4, Williams had released four of his short films, three of which he stars in.

Starring in his own projects is something Williams recently spoke about during an interview on Evan Ross Katz’s podcast, “Shut Up Evan.”

“I think it’s inevitable within the next five years I have my feature debut, which I probably will have wrote and just the egomaniac in me is going to act in it,” Williams said during the interview. “I want to exist in the worlds I create.”

Jonas Quastel, Langara College Film Arts’ program coordinator, remembers Williams as a “fresh-faced lad with a great attitude.”

“He wants to do interesting stuff. He doesn’t want to fall into the pretty boy situation. He wants to do cutting edge things,” Quastel says. “I see him on the track like Johnny Depp, like Keanu Reeves. I see him doing edgy things and mainstream things.”

A love for indie filmmaking

The young actor’s early filmography is lengthy with short films he and his friends made for various Vancouver film competitions.

That includes “Super Support,”, in which Williams plays Land Leopard, a superhero who’s lost his super speed powers — wearing a skimpy leopard-print halter top and shorts, a choppily-made mask and cat whiskers drawn on with marker.

Samantha Laroche, a friend and “Super Support” costar, vividly remembers Williams pitching her his look for Land Leopard over video call.

“It’s late at night. He’s already wearing the Land Leopard … I don’t even know what it was, like a sock on his face that he cut eye holes out of. Like he’s ready to go. He has his character,” Laroche says.

Williams’ commitment to creating with his friends hasn’t stopped since “Heated Rivalry” entered the zeitgeist.

Mark Masterton, another Langara pal, says after Williams completed production for season one in June 2025, he returned to Vancouver and “was immediately making more things with us. He never stopped to blink. He was already back into the indie world because he just loves making movies.”

Sexy role takes no one by surprise

“Heated Rivalry” is explicit, and the season’s first episode is especially jampacked with sex scenes between Williams and Storrie.

Masterton wasn’t shocked.

“When you see Hudson in ‘Heated Rivalry,’ he’s a shy, reserved character in Shane, and a lot of people are seeing him steamy with his clothes off, but it comes as no surprise at all to me … because literally every film project I’ve worked with him, he’s been semi-naked,” Masterton tells USA TODAY with a laugh.

In addition to his skimpy outfit in “Super Support,” Williams wears only boxers and a collar in Masterton’s short, “Dogging,” in which he plays a struggling actor pretending to be a dog

‘My boy is an HBO star.’

No one expected “Heated Rivalry” to become a bonafide pop culture juggernaut. As of Feb. 4, the series averaged 9 million viewers per episode in the U.S., Warner Bros. Discovery confirms to USA TODAY. And briefly, the fifth episode, “I’ll Believe in Anything,” became the second television episode in history to receive a perfect rating on IMDb, next to a “Breaking Bad” episode from 2013.

Masterton says he always knew Williams was going to make it big, but he didn’t expect it so soon.

“Of our group of friends, he always seemed like a shining star and he was the one to watch. He just had this raw talent that you knew was going to go the whole way,” Masterton says.

Fonzovs, Laroche and Masterton continue to cheer on Williams from afar. Fonzovs recalls a video call with the friend group, where Williams shared some big news.

“He called me one day when I was at the gym and he told me that they sold to HBO. We’re all just freaking,” Fonzovs says. “I ran around the gym like, ‘F***, my boy is an HBO star.” HBO picked up “Heated Rivalry” from Canadian streaming service Crave in November 2025.

Masterton remembers the night he watched the first two episodes alongside Williams, other friends and Williams’ mother.

“He wanted to share that moment with us all,” Masterton says. “I was feeling really awkward, like, ‘Oh my god, I’m so excited to see him, but I really hope it’s good because otherwise … you’re going to have to watch Hudson in the show and pretend it’s good.’ But we didn’t have to do that because it was genuinely awesome.”

During that initial, intimate viewing party, everyone had noisemakers, and each time a raunchy scene came on the screen, they’d toot their horns, Masterton says. One of the friends would also lean over and cover the eyes of Williams’ mother each time, too.

Friends, alma mater ‘beaming with pride’

As Williams continues to navigate newfound fame, Quastel says he and his colleagues at Langara are “beaming with pride” for their former student.

“I’m going to print a picture of him and put it on the wall with a little brass plaque,” Quastel says with a laugh. “You know, movie star No. 1.”

Through it all, Masterton says he is striving to keep things as normal as possible for his friend.

“Just a few weeks ago, we were out playing pickleball, getting our a**** handed to us by these middle-aged men and nobody had a clue who they were dealing with,” Masterton says with a laugh. “I’m obviously cheering him on from afar and letting him know how proud we are, but I’m arranging the next pickleball day, because we need to get our reputation back on.”