Connor Storrie

The Heated Rivalry star is trying to reestablish some boundaries.

- BY MOLLY LAMBERT

SUSPENDED SIX FEET off the ground and surrounded by giant silks hanging from the ceiling, Connor Storrie is grappling gamely with the loss of gravity.

As Lola Young plays over the speakers at the Aerial House, a brick-walled studio in Los Angeles's Eastside, an instructor coaches Storrie through a flying banana roll and other poses until he's heels over head. It's an apt metaphor for the actor's life since the Canadian TV series Heated Rivalry premiered at the end of November and shot the 25-year-old to international celebrity. Storrie plays stoic Russian hockey star Ilya Rozanov, who engages in an intense affair with a Canadian opponent, played by Hudson Williams, as the two scrabble for primacy within the sport. Based on the hit Game Changers books by Rachel Reid, creator Jacob Tierney's adaptation has been hailed as a fresh, horny, deeply intimate take on the romance genre. Fans have spent the past several weeks littering social media with GIFS of Storrie and Williams's naked butts. As Storrie flies around the room in a pair of black sweatpants and a worn-in white tee, his arm gripping one of the scarves, the instructor jokes, “We're not trying to hurt it.” Storrie, a wide grin on his face, shoots back, “I don’t know about you, but I'm trying to hurt it.”

Storrie spent the past two years honing his raw physicality in L.A.'s clowning scene alongside comedians such as Natalie Palamides and Courtney Pauroso, whose show introduced him to the discipline. Storrie says after class, demonstrating how blowing raspberries at a crowd, or cooing at an audience member as if they're a baby, could qualify as part of the performance. “If the audience likes it, then you keep doing it. And if the audience doesn't like it, you have to react and sit with that, like,