Jack Innanen Confirms He Turned Down a Starring Role in Heated Rivalry Season 2

Jack Innanen, the 27-year-old Canadian actor and comedian who became one of 2025’s breakout stars on FX’s Adults, confirmed this week that he will not appear in the second season of Heated Rivalry — the hockey romance series that became an unexpected international sensation last year — after receiving and declining a starring role offer due to scheduling conflicts.

Innanen had been publicly vocal about wanting in. He told reporters in April he had been “in conversations” with the show’s team and joked at the GLAAD Media Awards that he had been working on his hip mobility in anticipation. Fans had been dream-casting him as either Troy Barrett or Wyatt Hayes, two characters from Rachel Reid’s expanded Game Changers novel series on which the show is based.

But production calendars proved incompatible. At the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Adults Season 2 on June 11, Innanen confirmed the casting fell through. “I think it’s such an incredible show, and it didn’t work out,” he told reporters, declining to reveal which role he was offered. “I love Jacob, I love everyone involved.” He left a window open for a future appearance — “Maybe season 3, yeah” — though he acknowledged nothing is confirmed.

The conflict is easy to trace. Innanen returns as Paul Baker in Adults Season 2, which premieres August 27 on FXX and Hulu, and also reprises his role as Max in Netflix’s Big Mistakes, which was renewed for a second season. Heated Rivalry is set to begin production in August in Toronto and Montreal, with a targeted April 2027 premiere on Crave and HBO Max — a schedule that runs directly into both of Innanen’s existing commitments.

Heated Rivalry premiered on Crave on November 28, 2025, with virtually no pre-launch marketing campaign, and rapidly became Crave’s most-watched original series on record, growing viewership by nearly 400 percent in its first three weeks. It debuted at No. 2 on HBO Max’s streaming chart in the United States the day after launch, ranking among the platform’s top five scripted debuts of the year and standing as its highest-rated non-animated acquired title since the platform launched in 2020.

Season 2 will draw primarily from Reid’s second novel, The Long Game, with elements from Role Model, which focuses on Troy Barrett. Bell Media’s VP of Global Content told Deadline the scripts are “coming together really well,” adding: “I don’t think anyone will be disappointed.”