Five months ago, they were relative unknowns. Now, they're two of the most talked-about men in Hollywood

Having catapulted to A-list status in the crack of a hockey puck, two of the most talked-about breakouts of the year thus far have rooted themselves in the social zeitgeist with no prior warning.

One day, Heated Rivalry's Connor Storrie and Love Story's Paul Anthony Kelly were relative unknowns, shrouded in obscurity. The next, there was seemingly not a single, far-reaching corner of the internet they hadn't touched.

But as it turns out, the world was very-near deprived of both Kelly's ostensibly blue-blooded brand of Americana and the boundless charisma we've come to associate with Storrie.

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Prior to their respective breakout roles, the joint honourees of the internet's so-called 'white boy of the month' accolade were both but a whisper away from retaining relative-unknown repute forevermore.

But as luck – or a lifetime's worth of tireless attempts at making it big – would have it, their careers both reached their peaks at the very moment they were on the verge of throwing in the towel.

And while Storrie and Paul Kelly's paths towards superstardom have by no means intersected – with the shows to which they credit their overnight success released over two months apart – they certainly ran almost entirely parallel.

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Connor Storrie

Upon perusing Getty Images, the oldest photograph of Storrie to be found in the archives dates back a mere nine months ago, when rumblings of his role in an upcoming "gay hockey show" first began to generate buzz.

If anything, the recentness of said image is testament to the whirlwind nature of his overnight success.

Flash forward to today, and he's been primed as one of the next generation of leading men.

But before this meteoric rise, he was simply an ambitious boy of 12, known by the (incredibly apt) username "Actorboy222" on YouTube.

The videos he created – which have now gone viral in the wake of his roaring Heated Rivalry success – featured Storrie acting out various scenes and discussing his aspirations, essentially serving as a glimpse into his years-long journey to superstardom.

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Speaking to PEOPLE, Storrie revealed the choice to leave said videos up online had been a "conscious decision" on his part.

"It's weird to see them going viral, [but] actually, it was a choice to leave them up," he admitted.

"A fan reached out and was like, 'Hey, I know someone at YouTube who can help get them down,' and I went through the whole process."

But Storrie ultimately decided against removing the videos, viewing the act of leaving them up for the world to see as "a sort of self-acceptance ritual."

"I think when you're like 12 years old, you kind of look at that, and you're like, 'Oh, cringe, I don't want to see it,' but I don't know. It felt cool to be like, 'Yep, that was me, and this is me now,'" he added.

"It feels cool to accept that."

His goals remained front-of-mind throughout his high school years, after which he began to pursue them in earnest.

But it was not all smooth sailing for the overnight sensation – just one week before landing the lead role of Russian hockey star Ilya Rozanov, Storrie was at rock bottom, on the verge of being fired from his job as a waiter in Culver City, Los Angeles.

In tandem with bussing tables for 40 hours a week, Storrie had also been throwing every bit of remaining energy he had at various auditions since graduating from high school.

These efforts had yielded little for the aspiring actor over the course of eight years, save for the odd small role in Hollywood productions – and he'd been nearing his breaking point.

In fact, Storrie had reportedly been on the verge of quitting acting altogether when a last-ditch opportunity emerged at the 11th hour.

Initially drawn to the idea of a nuanced, emotionally complex role, when Heated Rivalry came up on the star's radar, he jumped at the chance to throw his hat in the ring.

The tale of a closeted, Russian ice hockey player who enters into a years-long entanglement with a man from the rival American team – played by fellow newcomer Hudson Williams – offered just the right about of scope to showcase Storrie's acting chops.

But it was one bold move that ultimately landed him the role of a lifetime.

Knowing the part required intense physical intimacy, Storrie famously made the risky decision to record his audition tape shirtless – completely unprompted.

Reasoning that the casting team would be interested in seeing each candidate's physique for the raunchy role, the risk paid off.

As it turned out, his wild shot in the dark would go on to land him the role – and the career he'd been furiously chasing since his pre-teen years.

Going from a soon-to-be-fired waiter to the celebrity host of Saturday Night Live in the space of a year is quite the career pivot, but somehow, Storrie has navigated the resulting whiplash with all the grace of a seasoned industry vet.

And so it was that a humble Colorado-born waiter became certified 'internet boyfriend' material.

Paul Anthony Kelly

He's the breakout star of one of the biggest shows in the world at present – but it very nearly never came to be.

Today, Kelly is fresh off the back of bringing a masterful portrayal of the late John F. Kennedy Jr. to the screen, in an anthology docuseries (taken with a grain of salt) detailing the tumultuous, whirlwind romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

It may come as no surprise to anyone who has simply looked at him, but Kelly's very first taste of the spotlight stemmed from runway modelling roots – a far cry from his embodiment of our favourite 90's heartthrob.

Born in Ontario, Canada, the now-37-year-old breakout star of Ryan Murphy's Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette was but a humble retail assistant at American Apparel when talent scouts approached him.

The ensuing years of minor runway stardom for the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Brooks Brothers and L.L. Bean did nothing to dispel his long-harboured acting ambitions – in fact, landing a career in acting became his singular focus even as he continued modelling work.

"A model walks the runway at the Vivienne Westwood show during Milan Menswear Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2014," reads the photo credit on Kelly's first-ever major runway show – with Kelly's actual name apparently not yet worth a mention.

It was in the midst of a similar modelling gig that he first discovered his uncanny likeness to the late Kennedy heir.

"I used to get it a lot, especially early in my modelling career, when I was working with Brooks Brothers," Kelly told Interview in 2025.

And while he admits he "didn't really see it then," he's certainly come to realise the validity of their claims in recent times.

Although grateful for his modelling roots, Kelly admitted he'd felt "pigeonholed" in that field, and closed off from pursuing his acting ambitions.

But despite this roadblock, Kelly proceeded to spend over 10 years attempting to do so, relentlessly auditioning for acting roles in Los Angeles with minimal success.

In fact, prior to Love Story, his only credit on IMBd was a minor role as "Photo Model" in a Canadian erotic drama series, Body Language.

Feeling acting might not be the right path for him after a decade of little progress, he had just made the decision to "move home to Canada and just figure it out" (per The Kelly Clarkson Show) when, by pure happenstance, he received the opportunity to audition for an upcoming Ryan Murphy Production.

"The opportunity presented itself, and it was a big one. I just had this feeling like I could relate to him," he told Harper's BAZAAR.

The process of finding their JFK Jr. proved a difficult one for executive producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson, as they revealed in a recent interview with PEOPLE.

"JFK was hard," Simpson says.

"We were three weeks away from shooting and we still [had] not cast him. We'd seen every male actor between the age of 25 and 38."

"Part of it was just that sort of '80s, old school masculinity – a man with hair on his chest, sort of Richard Gere, Tom Selleck, the classic chiselled looks – we're not making those guys anymore, for some reason, and he really needed to have that."

But when the newly-minted actor first came in for an "old-fashioned" screentest, Simpson and Jacobson knew that at long last, after combing desperately through every model and actors between the ages of 25 and 38, they had found their elusive JFK Jr.

And so it was that a model on the brink of forgoing his dearest ambition was plucked from relative obscurity to play the show's titular 'John-John' - emerging as one of the year's stars to watch in the process.

In this instance, one thing is certain: The entire world owes both Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson a great debt.

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