Author Rachel Reid brushed off criticism over the newest casting additions to “Heated Rivalry” on Friday, hours after Crave and HBO Max announced that Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie would join the show’s second season. Smith will play Harris Drover and Gillespie will play Troy Barrett, a couple introduced in “Role Model,” the fifth novel in Reid’s bestselling “Game Changer” series.
Reid posted a side-eyed selfie to her Instagram Story referencing the backlash that greeted last year’s casting of Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, the leads whose performances turned the show’s first season into a breakout hit. She wrote that she was thinking about everyone who told her that casting was wrong, a pointed nod to how thoroughly Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams won over skeptical fans once the season aired.
This round of criticism has centered largely on Smith, whom some longtime readers argue does not match the physical description of Harris in Reid’s novels, where the character is written as stocky. Neither Crave nor HBO Max has released official character breakdowns for the roles, though the books describe Troy as a hockey player traded to an Ottawa team following his estrangement from a former teammate accused of sexual assault, and Harris as the team’s social media manager tasked with helping him settle in.
Series creator Jacob Tierney and executive producer Brendan Brady defended the choice in a statement, saying Reid gave them two layered characters that audiences can’t help rooting for. They said the casting search prioritized actors capable of building real chemistry together, and that Smith and Gillespie immediately grasped the vulnerability and resilience at the center of Harris and Troy.
The exchange follows a pattern from the show’s first season, when Williams and co-star François Arnaud posted matching statements condemning fans who left bigoted comments on their castmates’ social media accounts. Season 2 is now in production in Canada and is set to premiere in spring 2027.
