Olly Atkins On Finding Her Edge, Canadian Storytelling & The Allure Of Love Triangles

Ice, sports, and angsty love stories are suddenly everywhere. The phenomena was kickstarted with Crave’s Heated Rivalry in 2025, and now Netflix’s Finding Her Edge is carrying it forward.

Adapted from Jennifer Iacopelli’s young adult novel of the same name, the series follows Adriana Russo, a skating prodigy carrying the weight of her family legacy while navigating a charged love triangle between two very different men.

A little brooding, a little closed off, but emotionally fluent once you earn access and build trust. This is exactly where our lead from Finding Her Edge, Freddie, enters. Played by twenty-three-year-old Olly Atkins, you might recognise him from web series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but in Finding Her Edge, he’s playing a totally different character – one for the booktok and bookstagram girlies! He speaks to us about masculinity that does not necessarily look traditional, Canada’s growing presence in global romance storytelling and his interest in love triangles. Edited excerpts:

Did you read Jennifer Iacopelli’s novel before stepping into Freddie, and what did it reveal about him that didn’t fully make it onto the screen? 

I hadn’t heard of the book before auditioning for the part, but I did read it before stepping into the role. I believe any information I can get always helps, and the book reveals some really interesting things about Freddie that aren’t fully present in the script. One moment I kept coming back to is a scene in the book where Freddie and Adriana are in Paris and go on a kind of date at a café. Adriana has this realization that she left Freddie as a boy, and he comes back as a fully realized man. That version of Freddie feels very different from the one we meet in the show. In the script, Freddie returns carrying all these overwhelming emotions from when he was younger. He’s not fully confident, not fully realized. He’s in a very vulnerable emotional state when he comes back. Maybe, off screen somewhere, Freddie did grow into that confident man the book hints at, but when we meet him in the show, he’s still very much shaped by the past. That contrast between the book and the script was a big informing point for how I approached the character.

Netflix

When you look at male leads today, do you feel we’re finally expanding what masculinity on screen is allowed to look like? 

I think, in some ways, the idea that masculinity has to be brash, loud, or arrogant has been overemphasised. Cocky isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, as long as there’s charm, but when I think about masculinity, I see those traits as virtues that have been overextended. Being brash is often just an overextension of confidence. It’s the same with being cocky. Even speaking out of turn isn’t inherently bad. Sometimes it’s important to do that, as long as it’s an intelligently chosen moment.

Emotional presence, in particular, feels like a trait of masculinity that we may have forgotten about for a while. The greatest warriors in history were poets. For me, emotional presence has always been a quality of great men. 

In modern dating, the line between emotional restraint and emotional unavailability can get blurry very quickly. How did you personally understand where Freddie stands? 

I think Freddie generally falls more on the side of emotional restraint, especially in his relationships with most of the other characters. For him, that restraint is intentional, a kind of chosen tempering of emotion for what he believes is the good of everyone involved. With Adriana, though, it shifts closer to emotional unavailability. Freddie is usually quite emotionally available and considerate, and I think he tells himself that he’s behaving the same way with her. But in reality, a lot of the time he simply doesn’t say what he wants or how he feels. He’s afraid of hurting people, and he’s afraid that the version of Adriana he’s been carrying with him for years might not match reality. Because of that fear, he holds back. Part of Freddie’s journey is having to overcome that fear and find a way to express himself. 

After playing one half of a love triangle, has your perspective on them changed? Are there any love triangles from films or shows you loved growing up or secretly hated? 

That’s a great question! Love triangles in real life are miserable. You definitely don’t want to be in one in the real world, but in media, I’m kind of a fan, really. They create really interesting narrative opportunities, don’t they? By placing a direct competitor next to someone, you suddenly get these moments of comparison and contrast that you might not consciously consider if the story were just one-on-one. It allows you to explore character traits in a more pointed way. But also, whether I like a love triangle or not usually comes down to whether I like the story overall, in the same way I’d judge a film or a show more broadly. If the story works, the love triangle works. If I had to pick a love triangle that I enjoyed growing up, I’d probably say Twilight. I love how campy it is. I think we all have our Twilight eras, and honestly, mine might still be ongoing!

So, is it team Edward or Jacob?  

Oh, I was Team Edward always. No question. This is also because I have always been a big fan of Robert Pattinson – I admire him a lot.

Hazel Atkins

Do you have any personal feelings about Adriana’s decision at the end? And without looking too far ahead, what do you think that choice opens up for the story after season one? 

Haha, that’s a nice way of asking about season two! Although the truth is, I can’t really speak to anything for season two because I don’t actually know anything about it yet! What I can say is that I know Freddie intimately and I know the history he shares with Adriana. I know all the feelings they have, the time they spent on the ice together, and the time they spent growing up and having all these first experiences together. I think if I were watching the show for the first time purely as a viewer, I’d understand why people are really Team Braden. Watching it back, I’m a little bit Team Braden myself. He’s passionate. He’s closed off in some ways, but he’s also really open with her in others. Where Freddie tends to shut down, Braden is open. He tells her exactly what he wants and exactly who he thinks they could be together.  

So, absolutely nothing you can tell us about season two?  

I think there are definitely challenges ahead for Freddie and Adriana. A lot of their relationship history comes from a time in the past as I mentioned earlier. As you grow older, the demands of a relationship change, and people change too. Personalities change. That’s not to say they can’t have a great relationship, but it does raise questions about where those bumps in the road might be. And then there’s Braden. Who knows what happens there? In many ways, he became a better man and then sort of messed it all up at the end. There are a lot of big unknowns going into a second season, and I think that’s why people are excited about it. It’s why I am, aren’t you? 

Your show sits at an interesting crossroads — it’s Canadian, adapted from a book, and centred around ice. With Heated Rivalry becoming a global phenomenon, Finding Her Edge is often recommended alongside it. Do you think Canadian romantic storytelling is finally being recognised as globally compelling, even without Hollywood-scale budgets? 

I think the thing about Canadian storytelling is that it exists within a really nuanced film industry. For a long time, Canada has been an incredible place to come and make American films. We have world-class technicians, hugely talented producers and crews, great locations, and strong tax incentives. But that is not all. We also have great actors. Ryan Gosling. Ryan Reynolds. The talent has never been the issue. The industry itself, however, has been very Hollywood-centric for a long time. So, it is genuinely exciting to see Canada finally get its time to shine. To see our show do well, and especially to see Heated Rivalry perform so phenomenally around the world, feels meaningful. Heated Rivalry had a visionary creator and incredibly talented actors, and it did not need much to have a really strong run. I hope this marks the beginning of a shift, not necessarily in how films are made, but in where they begin, and in the power that good, honest storytelling carries. 

Finding Her Edge feels like a real breakout moment for you. The show has travelled far, all the way to India and beyond, and suddenly you are being talked about as a TV boyfriend, with people picking sides and forming opinions on reddit!

This is probably not the most exciting answer or the one you’d want to hear, but it does not feel all that different day to day. I still wake up tired. I still take a long shower. In that sense, life feels very much the same. What has changed is how I feel about the opportunity this moment represents. Acting is what I love to do, and it is how I want to spend my life. To take a step forward in that direction, especially in a way like this, feels incredibly exciting and also deeply humbling. But my vision for the future has shifted in a meaningful way, and that is something that genuinely puts a smile on my face. I am very grateful for that.