Before Heated Rivalry, before Criminal Minds, before the Met Gala, and before the throngs of fans shouting his name, Connor Storrie was a clown.
Playing a cigarette-smoking Russian hockey star in the gay hockey romance that took the internet by storm brought Storrie near-instant A-list fame, but his career consisted of waiting tables, modeling, and clowning while he waited for that big break. Storrie threw himself into Los Angeles’ underground clown scene, an experience he credits with helping him embody roles like Ilya Rozonov in Heated Rivalry.
The 26-year-old actor opened up about his past as a clown in a feature with Cultured magazine that published right after the show’s finale aired, where Storrie remembered playing a stripper who gets injured on the way to a gig. “I come in trying to be all sexy, but all of my limbs are broken,” he laughed.
He later got the chance to bring this character to screen for millions of people when he was the guest host on Saturday Night Live. The show not only used one of his original characters, but paid homage to his past by dressing him up as a clown for his photo shoot.
Evidence of his days taking clown classes and performing can be found online thanks to dedicated — or possibly obsessive — fans who scoured the internet for every video and photo shoot of Storrie prior to his starring role in Heated Rivalry.
So we gathered them all together and rated them from funny and cute to smoking hot. Enjoy!
14.
Storrie wasn't just a silly clown; he also dressed up as a terrifying nun with clown face paint for a Clown Haunt performance.
12.
A baby-faced Storrie even manages to make smeared clown paint look amazing. His face card truly never declines.
9.
How do you make clown makeup and ripped nylons look sexy? We don't know but Storrie pulled it off.
7.
This SNL photo-shoot look is so sexy it makes us realize just how badly we want to see Storrie as the Emcee in Cabaret.
4.
The cheekbones, the nude chest, the lips! This is the chicest clown to ever exist.
3.
Between the punk aesthetic and nipple piercings on full display with that shirt, Storrie is serving.
2.
This sailor clown look is so hot, we may have to go watch Heated Rivalry again. It's hard work, but someone has to do it.
