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Meet the actress who plays Ilya’s friend Svetlana in Heated Rivalry – Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova

STORYIshani Sarkar
Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova plays Svetlana Vetrova in the hit series Heated Rivalry. Photo: @kseniadaniela/Instagram
Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova plays Svetlana Vetrova in the hit series Heated Rivalry. Photo: @kseniadaniela/Instagram
TV shows and streaming video

A model and trained dancer, the native Russian speaker’s credits also include The Boys and Slip

Season one of 2025’s most unexpected smash-hit TV series, Heated Rivalry, has come to an end, but fans are far from moving on. The queer romance drama, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series, is about rival ice hockey players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), who navigate a secret years-long relationship. The original series from Canadian streaming service Crave has won hearts around the world and is already set for a second season.
The show’s creator, Jacob Tierney, told Deadline that he’s considering expanding the Heated Rivalry universe to explore possible spin-offs based on Reid’s novels. Meanwhile, production company Bell Media’s vice-president of content development and programming, Justin Stockman, has also expressed interest in scaling the franchise, per The Ankler.
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Spin-off or not, one character fans want to see more of in the future is that of Svetlana Vetrova, played by Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova – Ilya’s childhood friend and occasional fling.

Here’s what to know about the actress.

Her background

Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova is half Russian and half Trinidadian, and a native Russian speaker. Photo: @kseniadaniela/Instagram
Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova is half Russian and half Trinidadian, and a native Russian speaker. Photo: @kseniadaniela/Instagram

Kharlamova is half Russian (with some Ukrainian ancestry) and half Trinidadian, and Russian is her native language, she revealed in a Q&A post on Instagram. Her mother acted in the theatre in Russia, Kharlamova told The Permanent Rain Press (The PR Press), and she herself is trained in dance and theatre. The young actress is now based in Toronto, per her IMDb profile.

She wanted to be a cinematographer

Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova has been acting since the age of 11. Photo: @kseniadaniela/Instagram
Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova has been acting since the age of 11. Photo: @kseniadaniela/Instagram

Kharlamova made her first forays into the entertainment industry around the age of 11, when she began appearing as an extra in TV shows and films, she told The PR Press. She originally aspired to become a cinematographer or camera operator, but chose acting after landing agency representation at the age of 16. You may have seen her in shows like Strays, Slip, Robyn Hood and The Boys.

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