We were joined on the Popternative show by Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova who plays Svetlana in the hockey romance phenomenon Heated Rivalry. Adapted from Rachel Reid’s popular book series, Game Changers, the Canadian Crave Original Series was quickly renewed for a second season after becoming Crave’s most successful original debut to date, setting a new record for first-week streaming numbers and seeing its audience grow by nearly 400 percent.
Svetlana is a key figure in the series with notable differences between the television adaptation and the Heated Rivalry book—adjustments she feels ultimately strengthened the show.
“I knew that the character was going to be different because before I went on set and started filming, I didn’t have time to read the book, I would have if I had time—but I searched everything up about [Svetlana], like when she appears [in the book], what type of relationship [she has with Ilya], and I knew it was going to be much different than the book. But I thought it was a good change. I think, sometimes, when adapting a book, you can’t always do one-for-one, stuff has to be different, not only for the pacing of a TV show, but also just for the story aspect, some things can be changed in a good way. I know a lot of the times, fans of books or comics don’t usually like big changes, but I thought this was a change that kind of extrapolated on their world and relationship and I thought it really worked, and that was a really good change by Jacob [Tierney]. He made other changes that I liked as well,” Kharlamova says.
Being half Russian, Kharlamova already spoke the language which was an essential part for her character. She also praises her co-star Connor Storrie’s commitment to learning Russian pronunciation for the role, a language he never knew before. “He was already working with a dialect coach for a while before we started filming. So by the time I met him, I was like, ‘Wow, your pronunciation’s amazing, like, how did you learn this phonetically?’ Even a lot of little sounds that are very hard for people who don’t speak the language, he got down very well. I remember the first scene we had together, we were staying at a hotel and we just went down to the lobby the night before and worked on [the scene] and I [told him] ‘honestly, I can’t give you any notes, it sounds so good.’ I was blown away.”
Looking ahead, she reveals her hopes for Svetlana in Season 2, including more scenes between the female characters and the possibility of Svetlana getting to meet Shane.
Watch the full conversation with Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova below.
Heated Rivalry Season 1 is streaming on Crave (Canada), HBO Max (Australia, US), and Neon TV (New Zealand).
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