“Heated Rivalry” breakout star Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova is booked and busy.
During her first-ever trip to New York City for fashion week, the Russian-Trinidadian beauty attended multiple shows, made her catwalk debut and drew a massive crowd for a meet and greet at Times Square tech emporium tm:rw.
“I wanted to meet all the fans, and this was a great opportunity to see some of them and see some of that support [for the show] as well,” Kharlamova, 23, told Page Six Style ahead of the latter event Sunday afternoon.
“But also, I think this is the coolest store ever. I’m actually a huge sci-fi nerd!”
In Crave TV’s smash-hit hockey romance, the flame-haired model and actress plays Svetlana Vetrova, Ilya Rozanov’s (Connor Storrie) best friend with benefits and closest confidant as he navigates his feelings for rival athlete Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams).
“I really liked playing a strong female friend. She didn’t get villainized, and I loved that, because it would have been really easy to villainize her in the story,” Kharlamova said, applauding “Heated Rivalry” author Rachel Reid for “making her a good friend.”
“And Jacob Tierney, our director and writer, did such an amazing job just extrapolating that story, making it bigger and making the characters so lovable.”
As a native Russian speaker, Kharlamova was also blown away by how Texas-bred Storrie managed to master his lines.
“Learning a language phonetically — learning a script phonetically — is insane. He did such a good job; 10 out of 10,” she said.
“When we filmed the funeral dinner scene, everyone at the table was a Russian actor, and all of them were trying to speak to him because they thought he was Russian!”
Now, along with Storrie and the rest of the “Heated Rivalry” cast, Kharlamova’s found herself catapulted to superstar status practically overnight — an “insane experience,” as she put it.
“Whenever you film a TV show in Canada, you don’t really expect people to see it. We have a much smaller audience, nationally. So it feels strange, but also amazing that a Canadian show — especially one with such a tiny budget — is loved by so many people,” she said.
“I’m very grateful. I’ve made so many new friends and I’ve had so many new experiences, and I think it’s a dream for an actor to be on a show that just blows up internationally.”
One such new experience? Being invited to walk in Christian Cowan’s fall 2026 runway show.
“I was nervous leading up to it,” she admitted. “I was even like, ‘Oh my God, do I cancel?’ I just didn’t want to have a bad walk. I didn’t want people online to clown me!”
Kharlamova ultimately overcame those jitters, swapping her signature curls for a sleek, straight blowout and strutting her stuff in a faux fur-trimmed funnel-neck coat styled with sheer red thigh-highs.
“It was so much fun. Christian was so nice, the girls backstage were so great and I loved my outfit,” she said.
“I’ve been modeling for so long, but I’ve never done a runway. It’s something that was kind of foreign to me, but I’m so glad I did it.”
We have a feeling this won’t be Kharlamova’s last turn on on the catwalk.
