Background and career
Hudson Williams (born February 13, 2001) is a Canadian actor. He rose to prominence for his breakout role as Shane Hollander in the Crave original television series, Heated Rivalry (2025–present), for which he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Leading Performance in a Drama Series. He will appear in the upcoming Crave series Yaga, the Netflix limited series The Altruists, and the films Apparatus and Tyrant.
Williams was born on February 13, 2001, in Kelowna, British Columbia, and moved as a young child to Kamloops, British Columbia, where he was raised. His mother, an interior designer, is Korean, and his father, a mechanical engineer, is of British and Dutch descent. Williams began his schooling at a French immersion kindergarten before transferring, at his mother's suggestion, to Beattie School of the Arts, where he studied dance, music, and theatre. He later graduated from Sa-Hali Secondary School in Kamloops, where he played on the basketball team and trained in mixed martial arts. He renewed his focus on acting in grade 11, and has said that taking acting classes in Vancouver persuaded him that acting could become a viable profession. In 2020, Williams moved to Vancouver to attend Langara College, where he earned an acting certificate from the Film Arts program that same year. After graduating, he began writing and directing short films and attending acting auditions while working as a restaurant server at The Old Spaghetti Factory in New Westminster. His first short film as writer and director was Snow Angel.
Williams built his early career through self-produced short films made with a recurring group of Vancouver-based collaborators, and the films attracted a significant rise in viewership following his rise to fame. He received the Best Ensemble award at the 2024 Vancouver Badass Film Festival for the short film, Devil Makes Three, and won Best First-Time Director at the 2026 Hollywood ShortsFest for his short film, Rancid. His early screen credits include the episode "IRL" of the CBC drama Allegiance, the television films, Nobody Dumps My Daughter and All I Need for Christmas, and the episode "The Disciple" of the CBS series Tracker.
In 2025, Williams was cast as Shane Hollander in the sports romance television series, Heated Rivalry, created and directed by Jacob Tierney and based on the Game Changers novel series by Rachel Reid. His audition process included a self-tape, a callback with Tierney and three chemistry reads, with his chemistry with co-lead Connor Storrie being an important factor in Tierney's casting decision. Williams has said that his mother had previously voiced concern that he would have trouble getting acting roles as an Asian Canadian; however, his heritage proved to be crucial to his casting as Shane Hollander. Williams modeled aspects of the character on athletes such as Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Kobe Bryant and Tom Brady. Heated Rivalry premiered on Crave and HBO Max on November 28, 2025 and became a global success. Williams received praise for the subtlety of his acting and his ability to convey Hollander's inner thoughts, as well as his nuanced and non-stereotypical portrayal of an autistic character. Reid commented that Williams fully embodied the role, praising the expressiveness of his face. /Film singled out Williams and Storrie for their microexpression work, and the chemistry between the two leads has received extensive praise, with Kaiya Shunyata for RogerEbert.com writing that "Williams and Storrie share a chemistry so intense it rivals Bogart & Bacall". The series was renewed for a second season in December 2025, with the second season expected to release in April 2027. In May 2026, Williams won Best Leading Performance in a Drama Series at the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards for his performance in Heated Rivalry, becoming the youngest actor to win the award at 25. In December 2025, Williams signed with Creative Artists Agency for representation. That same month, he and Storrie starred in Ember & Ice, a three-episode romance fantasy audio series where Williams voiced the character Prince Finn Lunare. The episodes were released on the mobile audio platform Quinn between December 30, 2025 to January 5, 2026. On February 28, 2026, Williams had a cameo appearance in the Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Storrie. He has also starred in music videos: as Count Orlok in Love Lucille's "Lights On" and then as the featured heartthrob character in Laufey's "Madwoman" video, alongside other prominent mixed Asian stars Alysa Liu, Lola Tung and Megan Skiendiel. Williams made his Toronto International Film Festival debut in September 2026 with the premiere of Yaga and the individual event "Making Waves With...Hudson Williams".
In February 2026, Williams was cast as Henry Park in Yaga, a Crave mystery thriller series based on the play by Kat Sandler, starring alongside Carrie-Anne Moss, Noah Reid and Clark Backo. In April 2026, AMC+ acquired the exclusive United States streaming rights to the series and it is set to premiere in late 2026. On September 10, 2026, Yaga and Crave announced on Instagram that Williams will play two roles, Henry and Logan. In March 2026, Netflix announced that Williams would appear in a recurring role as Duncan Rheingans-Yoo in The Altruists, a limited series about the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, starring Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle. That same month, he was cast in a leading role opposite Dylan O'Brien in the feature film, Apparatus, directed by Sofia Banzhaf; in April 2026, he joined an ensemble cast including Charlize Theron, Julia Garner and Demi Moore in the culinary thriller film Tyrant, directed by David Weil. Alongside acting, Williams continues to write and direct. In a January 2026 interview, Williams shared his aspiration to make his feature film directorial debut based on his own script in the next five years.
Williams has named Heath Ledger as his all-time favourite actor and has also mentioned Michelle Williams, Mark Rylance, Marlon Brando and Parker Posey among the performers who have influenced him. Among filmmakers, he has cited Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick as favourites. He has spoken of his longtime love of queer cinema, naming Moonlight and Brokeback Mountain among his favourite films, and has cited Rooney Mara in Carol and Trevante Rhodes in Moonlight as inspirations for his portrayal of Shane Hollander.
