François Arnaud is a French-Canadian actor best known for his role as the gay hockey player Scott Hunter in the hit show Heated Rivalry, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers book series.
Born in Montreal, Canada in 1985, Arnaud fell in love with acting upon watching the play Cyrano de Bergerac when he was nine and immediately began trying to memorize the monologues. Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was another early influence, a film Arnaud says he watched every day as a kid and has seen about four hundred times. In a sit-down with Interview Magazine, Arnaud said that his mother considered his childhood ambition to become an actor far-fetched:
My mom thought I was crazy, and I probably was. I didn’t act professionally before going to drama school. I don’t know if I had the confidence. I didn’t think I’d get in when I first auditioned for drama school and then I did.
Arnaud graduated from Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, an elite prep school in Montreal, and studied at the drama school Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal. He made his professional screen debut in 2008 in the French-Canadian comedy series Taxi 0-22. From there, he landed a series of roles in French-Canadian productions, including films such as I Killed My Mother and Heat Wave, and the series Yamaska.
Arnaud’s breakout performance came in 2011, when he gained global recognition for his costarring role as Cesare Borgia in the Showtime historical drama The Borgias. He has starred in the NBC thriller series Blindspot, the NBC supernatural drama Midnight, Texas, and the Fox sitcom The Moodys. He has also appeared in films such as The Girl King, Rabid Dogs, Permission, and Marlowe, as well as series such as Schitt’s Creek, UnREAL, Blindspot, Yellowjackets, Surface, and Quantum Leap. As of 2026, Arnaud has gathered more than fifty acting credits to his name.
In 2025, Arnaud rose to much higher public visibility for his co-starring role as Scott Hunter, a closeted professional ice hockey player. Though the character is secondary to leads Shane Hollander (played by Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), Hunter steals the show of the series’ first season by making in-world history as the first Major League Hockey player (the fictional version of the National Hockey League) to publicly come out as gay/bi. Hunter’s now-iconic post-championship on-ice kiss with his boyfriend Kip (Robbie G.K.) has become one of the most recognizable moments of the show’s viral success. Arnaud’s performance earned him a Canadian Screen Award nomination as well as a 2026 Queerty Award.
In addition to his acting career, Arnaud is an accomplished photographer and musician. He has released several albums as a member of the band The Dealers and has exhibited his photography in galleries in Canada and the United States.
In June 2020, François Arnaud came out as bisexual in an Instagram story, in which he shared his thoughts on the LGBT community and the challenges that bi people face. He spoke candidly about his own experiences, describing his sexuality as a “gray area” and explaining that he has been attracted to both men and women throughout his life. Since then, Arnaud has been a vocal advocate for LGBT rights and representation in the entertainment industry.
In late 2025 and early 2026, as Heated Rivalry’s explosive popularity spread beyond the fandom and into the mainstream, Arnaud’s personal life — especially the fact that he’s become inseparable from costar Connor Storrie — has led to widespread speculation that the two are dating, with fans calling them “Concois” or “Francon”.
