Hudson Williamss latest gig might be his most revealing yet - Queerty

Heated Rivalry Season 2 is filming as we speak and Yaga is almost upon us, but Hudson Williams isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s busy picking up new gigs, and his newest casting announcement could give Heated Rivalry fans the answers to some of their most pressing (and filthiest) questions about Shane and Ilya.

Williams’s new gig isn’t a straightforward narrative drama: it’s a celebrity-studded show that puts people on the autism spectrum front and center, sometimes in controversial ways.

The British interview show The Assembly has been running since 2024, and it’s already created plenty of interesting discourse for the gays. You’ll recall earlier this year, when a clip from the show had viewers listening in to Stephen Fry’s response to one out of pocket, but sadly routine, question about his love life: are you a top or a bottom?

You might be thinking, how can interviewers get away with a question that invasive? Well, that’s the whole point of The Assembly. A group of celebrities must answer questions posed by folks on the autism and neurodivergent spectrum, full stop.

What can we expect from the interviewers once Hudson gets in the room? Pure, unadulterated sauciness. In the trailer for the new season, we see fans already getting down to details. “I’m gonna ask you about your sex life,” one woman tells Williams.

“Hell yeah!” he responds.

It makes total sense that this is Williams’ next move. Not only was his character Shane Hollander a subtle, important milestone of autism representation onscreen, the actor has spoken about basing the character’s autistic traits on his father, who is on the spectrum.

“Sometimes autism’s portrayed in movies with quirky head movements, weird blinks, and weird inflections. And it’s like, Okay…? That is sometimes truthful but that’s always the reach,” Williams told Glamour last December. “Sometimes it is flat affect. It’s just being immobile in your seat and taking 10 seconds to move your hand to do something because you don’t know what this movement looks like or means.”

We’ve seen attempts at autism representation before, notably on Netflix‘s Atypical, the show that launched Jack Haven to fame. But as Williams points out, characters on the spectrum tend to fall into the realm of heavy stereotype. It’s rare that we see a high-functioning autistic character portrayed with nuance, empathy, and realism—and even rarer that we see a neurodivergent character of color brought to life in this way.

So you can imagine the interviewers on this season of The Assembly are well within their rights to fangirl out, for a variety of reasons. The subjects know the rules: no questions are out of bounds, and when you’re asked, you’ve got to give an answer. No cop-outs allowed.

And if you’re wondering, yes: they do ask Williams about his steamy scenes with co-star Connor Storrie.

Joining Williams on the show this season are Zach Galifianakis, Jay Baruchel, and Olympic ice hockey star Marie-Philip Poulin. It’s set to be a fascinating season, and fans are all in.

That said, there are potential issues. The Assembly is a cool concept, and we need all the positive, nuanced neurodivergent representation we can get. At times, however, the show does dip into some unpleasant tropes: namely, the “aren’t autistic people so cute/inspirational?” one that many shows fall prey to, including the popular Love on the Spectrum.

But does that mean we’re going to pass up a second of Hudson Williams getting grilled by the best interviewers in the game? Not a chance.