How Hudson Williams navigated the 'overwhelming' pressure of playing LGBTQ+

Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams knows he has a lot on his shoulders playing a gay hockey player.

Williams stars as pro hockey star Shane Hollander in the hit Crave/HBO Max show about two on-ice rivals who fall passionately in love while trying to keep their sexualities private. Now, he's opened up about the pressures he felt to get the character, and the show's queer representation, right.

Williams was on CNN News Central, where he spoke with anchors John Berman, Kate Bolduan, and Sara Sidner about the show and queer representation in hockey.

During the interview, Sidner asked about Harrison Browne, the first trans hockey player in a pro league, who had a cameo on the show. He asked if Williams spoke to Brown about representation when preparing for the role.

Williams says he spoke with Browne on set but only later learned "what he means to the community."

Williams says it was in conversations with the show's creator, Jacob Tierney, that he figured out how he would approach the subject of his character's sexuality. He says he would talk "with Jacob about the character that he adapted because it was, you know, based on this book.

"I felt like the specificity was really the thing I just wanted to nail," Williams says. "Because to like try to like comment or understand everything of, you know, trans, gay, you know, bisexual, I was like, OK, no, that's too overwhelming. Let me focus on just this one character."