{"id":38528,"date":"2026-05-09T14:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T14:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/38528\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T14:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T14:58:08","slug":"heated-rivalry-showrunner-jacob-tierney-on-queer-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/38528\/","title":{"rendered":"Heated Rivalry showrunner Jacob Tierney on Queer joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joyful Queer love stories are still rarer on television than they should be \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly why Heated Rivalry struck such a chord<\/a> with audiences this year. Speaking with Queer & Now at the Departure Honours in Toronto, showrunner Jacob Tierney reflected on the importance of putting Queer joy front and centre, why the series needed a happy ending, and how the hit show resonated far beyond LGBTQ+ audiences.<\/p>\n

Departure Festival<\/a> hit Toronto this week, with talent from across Canada joined by international stars for a week of performances, showcases, panels and all things entertainment industry related. This includes the Departure Honours, an award ceremony giving flowers to some of the most talented stars in the country. That includes none other than the Heated Rivalry showrunner, Jacob Tierney<\/a>, who received the Creative Impact Award.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the most amazing gift that I\u2019ve been given, and it\u2019s my absolute pleasure and honour to be able to be a person who can put not just a Queer storyline, but a joyful Queer story on TV,\u201d the writer told Queer & Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He shared that joy is the key, because even though we\u2019re seeing more 2SLGBTQ+ representation on screen, that doesn\u2019t equate to seeing the happiness of our communities reflected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the most important thing to me, because I think that so many people see our stories and for understandable reasons, there\u2019s a lot of trauma associated with them,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, really, the reason I wanted to make Heated Rivalry is because it\u2019s a love story with a happy ending, and it\u2019s incredibly meaningful to me to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

And why is Queer joy so important?<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s the best. Because we don\u2019t get to see it, and I think joy is the best antidote to hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highlighting of Queer love and happiness is something that Canadian actress Ksenia Kharlamova, who plays Svetlana Vetrova, the love interest and friend of Ilya Rozanov, also holds dear.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like this show has really touched so many different demographics of people, and I feel like there\u2019s something in it that everyone can connect with, which I really, really love,\u201d Kharlamova told Queer & Now.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is something that she also appreciates from her perspective as a woman of colour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think they would cast me just because I\u2019m not stereotypically Eastern European looking, even though we have, like, a ton of different ethnic groups in Eastern Europe,\u201d Kharlamova, who is of Russian-Trinidadian descent, explained.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like, often, a lot of casting directors think like, \u2018Oh, this character has to be this race for us to cast you,\u2019 and it\u2019s like, why can\u2019t they just be like a person or a character that just fits the story?\u201d she continued, adding that it\u2019s important for audiences to see themselves represented.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many different faces out there, so many different people, and so many different stories. So I feel like it\u2019s amazing to showcase that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

A moment for my Lesbians in the fanbase<\/p>\n

Heated Rivalry is based on the novel of the same name by Canadian author Rachel Reid. Ahead of season two<\/a>, which is already in production and based on a book in the same collection of novels, this Lesbian columnist had an important question for Tierney: Will my fellow women-loving-women have a moment in season two? Not clear \u2013 but he did give us our flowers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want Lesbians to have a moment all the time, most of my heroes are lesbians,\u201d he shared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s a\u2026 Lesbian storyline coming up in the show, but I\u2019m so grateful to the Lesbians that formed me, and that made me into the man and the artist that I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joyful Queer love stories are still rarer on television than they should be \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly why…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8166,9535,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-38528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-heated-rivalry","9":"tag-queer-now","10":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}