Jacob Tierney takes desire seriously and gives actors time to make it convincing. We recommend his adult romance with a reservation: in Heated Rivalry, the attraction is often better developed than the people feeling it.
Fi1m perspective
In Heated Rivalry (2025), two rival hockey players are allowed to want each other, and Tierney gives that wanting plenty of screen time. We felt relieved by his willingness to let sexual pleasure matter without attaching a punishment or a lesson to it. As creator, writer and director, he makes an adult gay romance with an ease that helps its more sentimental passages. We recommend it for the lovers, while wishing he were more curious about the men themselves.
His first feature as writer-director, Twist (2003), moved Oliver Twist into Toronto’s male hustler scene. He followed it with the satirical comedy The Trotsky (2009) and the thriller Good Neighbours (2010). Television then became a substantial part of his work through Letterkenny (2016–2023), created by Jared Keeso. Tierney acted, wrote and directed on that series, developing television craft he would bring to his six-episode adaptation of Rachel Reid’s novel, Heated Rivalry.
The decisive collaborators here are Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, who play rival hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. They make attraction convincing before Tierney’s writing has given either character much depth. His stated visual references for the series include noirs and In the Mood for Love, but it is the casting that makes us want to keep watching. He has found actors whose chemistry sustains our interest when the scripts give them too little to work with.
The limitation is how little curiosity those scripts sometimes show about the men beyond their attraction. Tierney can make grown men seem younger than they are, and there are passages where wanting each other stands in for getting to know each other. A romance can afford fantasy, but the slower work of learning who someone is would make the affection more persuasive. Start with Heated Rivalry if the lovers matter more to you than the sport.
Biography
Jacob Tierney is a Canadian actor, director and writer. Born on 26 September 1979 in Montreal, Quebec, he began acting as a child and later moved into writing and directing feature films and television.
Tierney is known for his performances in Laurence Anyways (2012) and Letterkenny (2016–), in which he also co-wrote and directed episodes and played the character Glen. He wrote and directed the films Twist (2003) and The Trotsky (2010). He created, wrote and directed the 2025 series Heated Rivalry.
He is the son of the late film producer Kevin Tierney.
