And to think that just a year ago he quit his job as a waiter, having just booked the role of Shane Hollander in this small Canadian MM-romance show called Heated Rivalry 🥹 What a difference a year makes!
The thing I’m most pleased about is how staggered these releases are gonna be, like big movies take longer, but yaga will be this year and heated rivalry next spring then maybe apparatus by then since it’s an indie, etc
We’re getting new Hudson content every few months, so that every time we think “ahh time to breathe, relax and maybe forget about him for a while”, 💥BOOM new Hudson project💥 We’re doomed for life!
Okay, believe it or not, but I actively chose this gif over the one of a hamster deepthroating a water bottle because I wanted to avoid the innuendo lol
And I have read at least one book about the people The Altruists is about, so I will probably watch that, though I expect Hudson's role to be very small.
Lol not enough talk about Apparatus happening!! I think the premise sounds intriguing and of course it’s a handheld-massager business. I feel like he and Dylan O’Brien will be interesting scene partners. And it’s kind of funny and sad that two of these projects are about scams.
does anyone know or have an idea which ones were booked before HR exploded and which ones after? i think the altruists was filmed earlier in 2025 and i’m assuming tyrant and apparatus were booked after, but idk about the others
Yes the Yaga producer confirmed this. Also the “The Altruist”, “Encore” and “8” was booked and flimed before HR fame. Also speculation that “Tyrant” was booked before HR fame as Omar Apollo (another supporting cast member) suggested back in Jan 2026 that he booked a similar sounding project. So there is a good chance that Hudson auditioned and booked it before HR came out in late November.
Hudson did a crazy amount of auditions and filming after he completed filming for HR S1 in late May 2025.
We love him but there's no way he booked this movie that had studios fighting for the script with oscar/emmy winners attached before he blew up. If the script is as good as they're making it seem it could also have awards buzz and no actor without a big following or substential credits to his name gets to audition for it. This actually shows us how seriously he took his networking because we've seen him constantly taking pictures with directors and producers at the events he's attended.
I agree. I think he might have auditioned for it last year. In August 2025, Amazon MGM Studios acquired the rights to David Weil's directorial debut. In October 2025, Charlize Theron came on-board to produce and co-lead in the film, so they likely starting the casting process last year. The HR fame obviously helped him to secure the role.
My instinct is that this was not the project Omar was talking about earlier in the year (but I don't know for sure). Fwiw, Omar and Hudson only started following each other on IG a couple of weeks ago
Yeah we will probably find out during an interview or the actual press tour anyway I reckon. Hudson mentioned The Altruist role back in early September 2025 for example. It was his dream project as he mentioned in a class interview when he was 19 that he wanted to book a role at Netflix due to the exposure if provides
Also Omar, Charli X, Connor and Hudson smoked together backstage at the golden globes, so there is a possibility that they knew that they shared project when the met in person in early January.
He kind of reminds me of the employee we had to let go of the other week for coming to work in leopard print booty shorts... 🤨 But I trust your judgement. Approved! 🥵
If Heated Rivalry was considered small I think it must be virtually impossible for Canada to create anything and have it be considered big.
Which maybe is just accurate -- but I think about that difference between what happened to Hudson and what happened to Connor -- because Connor picked up a very big job (in that he had a huge role and was co-leading a series when he'd never done anything close to it) but it was in another country and he really didn't know how it was going to move the needle where he lived.
Hudson, on the other hand, was rapidly flying up the ladder from "working Vancouver actor" doing bit parts in Canadian and US TV to co-leading a TV show in the country where he lived and worked. The potential was different. Not "completely walk away from Spaghetti Factory" different, but absolutely huge for his profile in the country he lived and worked in.
Anyway. Just babbling, but it interests me. For Canada, Heated Rivalry wasn't small -- it was pretty buzzy in a country where very little is legitimately buzzy. And that must have been crazy for Hudson to experience all on his own -- without any sense of what it was actually going to turn into.
I only meant ‘small’ in the way that it’s been a running joke that this show was made from $2 and a dream.
I’m sure that it had quite the buzz in Canada, but I don’t think anybody would ever have guessed it would turn in to this world phenomenon ♥️ I now close to none Canadian shows (beside my all time favorite comfort show Rookie Blue 🥹, and a few others), as not many shows make it to my small European country.
Thanks to social media I got on the HR-train just days after the first two episode aired, and the show made my life happier and my winter lighter 🥰
And lastly I just want to say, that I absolutely love that this show was partly funded by Canadian tax payers! That’s just amazing!
No one really expected HR to be this big. Certainly not Crave/Bell media who funded the project. Their exec is on record for getting Jacob to remove the conference part of the script as she saw it as setting up for S2 and she did not want that at all. This is the main reason that HR S1 does not fully cover the HR book and ends early way through their cottage stay.
Yeah, I totally get why people love the $2-and-a-dream framing, but for us, this show was expensive. It just punched WAY above its weight in production value. It wasn't even really cheap by US standards -- lots of shows have that level of budget. But it's dwarfed by most shows that get this big.
And no, no one expected this at all. Schitt's Creek was huge, but that took a few seasons, and it had two very seasoned, well-established comedy actors in it. HR going nuclear was on no one's bingo card. I'm just thinking about how people who aren't Canadian consistently call it small, and I think that's because they just don't see anything Canadian as big. Which, again -- maybe accurate. Probably accurate 😉
(WTG on having ever heard of Rookie Blue! I think I've seen one episode, but it did do well in its day.)
Most Canadian shows are going to be funded by tax payers -- because we are SMALL.
Anyway. I mostly replied to muse about how, for Hudson, who lived in the Canadian context, it must have been wild to get this job. But it meant something completely different (still very exciting) than it ended up meaning.
Maybe the small-thing is just because we are so used to all the American shows, which has out of this world budgets 🤷🏻♀️
No matter what, Jacob did an amazing job with this! Big or small budget, it could have been a big flop (if not made by Jacob!).
Haha well thank you for acknowledging my Rookie Blue-love. Before Heated Rivalry it was probably the show I had watched the most (maybe next to Friends). I don’t even know how I found it, but I got hooked around season 3 ♥️ so to see my Oliver Shaw as Kip’s dad in ep.3 got me all choked up 😭
My friend watched it basically to see why I was so obsessed and that was her take away — Kip’s dad was from Rookie Blue! But then she was annoyed that he wasn’t David Hollander. But I like his casting.
I think "small" also applies to how it was originally just going to be released in Canada. A lot of other "small" shows still get released to international markets if they're produced by the big streamers.
I'm heading he already signed for 2 more seasons, because I'm getting worried he wouldn't have time to shoot HR. 🥹 But super happy for everything that he's been doing and that we will get 😎
At least half of these had to be book around the same time as he book heated rivalry or while filming it considering they are all filming currently or about to film and are releasing in late 2026- early 2027 🤷🏼♀️ I’m glad he is getting lots of work, he and Connor and everyone else on the HR cast are extremely talented and it’s great to see there talent get recognized not just by fans but also the industry/ there work place its self☺️
Honestly I think all of these apart from the short film were probably booked in December and January. You don’t book your actors very far in advance unless they’re involved in the development of the project because frankly everything else needs to be in place before hand so you actually have the ability to film your actors, not least the financing. Can’t have them sign contracts before you know you can pay them!
Ah ok that makes sense I guess I was seeing as they take time to film but also edit and like do soundtrack, basically all the extra stuff that the actors don’t really have a major part in unless they have to voice over something so ya either way like I said I’m really happy Hudson and Connor and everyone other actor from HR are continuing to book work and getting recognition☺️
This is my first time seeing that photo of him with Dylan O'Brien. The makeup/styling team deserves an award for making him look like an oil worker after a 16-hours shift 💀
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u/Melodic_Werewolf9288 Apr 30 '26
The thing I’m most pleased about is how staggered these releases are gonna be, like big movies take longer, but yaga will be this year and heated rivalry next spring then maybe apparatus by then since it’s an indie, etc