Hudson Williams’ old life melted away in a flash.
The actor, 24, quickly shot to stardom following the November premiere of the hockey drama “Heated Rivalry.”
Since the Crave series, which follows rival professional hockey players in a secret romance, has aired, Williams and his co-stars Connor Storrie and François Arnaud have had a whirlwind three months.
Williams and Storrie, 25, were presenters at the Golden Globes earlier this month before jetting off to Italy for Milan Fashion Week.
However, gaining such a high level of notoriety comes with its struggles.
“It doesn’t feel like anything you could prepare for. It’s a different existence now, not based on worth or whatever quality of human. But it’s a different life,” Williams expressed while on the “Shut Up Evan” podcast on Tuesday.
The Canadian star went on to compare his cast’s level of success to that of the Beatles when they first rose to fame.
“And when you see these people, like when you see the Beatles, when you see BTS, there’s an element of ‘that’s not another human that’s a celebrity,’” he elaborated, “which exists in this weird definition that is very abstract. I thought I could empathize with it, but I couldn’t fully feel what they were going through until now. And now it’s just brought this wave of sympathy because it’s not easy.”
When Williams made his debut on “The Tonight Show” earlier this month, fans took to social media to share footage of themselves camped out overnight for the chance to see him.
Williams told podcast host Evan Ross Katz that while he’s grateful for the support, it is overwhelming to have so many eyes on him.
“Although it feels good that people admire your work, it’s — we can go to pockets of places I never thought we would be found and we’re still pulled aside for a photo,” he explained. “You have to look nice because you can’t just roll out in sweatpants, which I used to always do, and just look awful. There’s all these things that are just sort of exhausting.”
Willams, who worked as a server at the Spaghetti Factory in Canada before landing his breakout role, wants “to just have a sort of semblance of privacy,” as he adapts to the “weird balance” that comes with massive fame.
“I can’t possibly sign everyone’s thing, talk to everyone, and I can’t steal away ’cause then also there’s an element of selfishness,” Williams noted.
“If I were to stay and sign everything, the security — they have other jobs to do,” he continued. “They have to take other people into the building, they have to get off the clock. My publicist needs to get somewhere. My agents need to get somewhere. It can become a selfish act, not a generous one, to [try] and meet everyone. So it’s a weird balance, and there’s so much minutia that I never could possibly imagine exists in this world of celebrity.’
Despite the downsides, Williams is grateful for how “Heated Rivalry” took off.
“It’s hard to complain about because for a long time I’ve been a cliché of an actor, you know, struggling server, paycheck to paycheck, just desperate for any role, let alone a good one,” he said. “I was just talking with one of my agents yesterday, and she said, Connor and I have had to learn what a lot of actors get in 5 years in like 30 days.”
Series creator Jacob Tierney told Entertainment Weekly in December: “I don’t know what I expected, but it was not this. It’s so great. I’m very grateful and I’m very thrilled. In terms of engagement, if I’m being honest, I try not to engage that much and kind of let this happen. Hopefully the more interesting conversations about the show will happen once it’s all aired and you can see what it was doing from the beginning.”
Arnaud, 40, meanwhile, has also opened up about the harder side of fame.
“I’m struggling to sleep, actually. It’s a lot,” he confessed to the outlet that same month. “I have to like delete my Instagram. It’s just too much for me.”
