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Spoilers ahead for XO, Kitty. When Gia Kim logged into her Netflix account, she couldn’t believe her eyes. XO, Kitty was the number-one show watched on the streaming site. The teen rom-com has captured hearts across the world with its complicated love triangles and squares, and the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the show is still very touching for the South Korean actress.
“To just see it hit number one in a day is crazy,” she tells me on a Zoom call the day after the show premiered. “Many people, at least in North America, have watched it already. I see some comments being like, ‘Oh, I binged the entire thing already.’ So it’s always wild to think that we took so long to shoot and produce the whole season, and then people can just finish it in one sitting overnight.”
Related: XO, Kitty‘s Anna Cathcart on That ‘Unexpected’ Twist: ‘I Ship Whoever She Ships’
Gia plays Yuri Han, the Queen Bee of KISS (the Korean Independent School of Seoul). Her character had a roller coaster of a first season: She started in a rivalry with Kitty (Anna Cathcart), pretended to date Kitty’s boyfriend Dae (Minyeong Kim) when she was actually hiding the fact she had a girlfriend, later made up with Kitty, and then came out to her strict mother. In Season 2, Yuri and her girlfriend Juliana’s (Regan Aliyah) relationship becomes fractured after she spends more time with Kitty (who came out as bisexual to her), and her lavish spending habits have been mysteriously halted when her credit cards declined.
Ahead, Kim talked to StyleCaster about the buildup that led to Yuri kissing Kitty, and if we’ll ever see them romantically together in the show.
After Season 1, I think Yuri has become one of the most iconic Gen Z Asian queer characters. What have the fan interactions been like hearing stories from young people who have the same experiences as Yuri?
A lot of the feedback that I’ve gotten was more online. Even if I meet fans in person, I haven’t had fan meetings where I can actually converse with them and hear their feedback personally. But online, I have fans sending me long stories of their personal journeys with their sexuality, how the show came into their life at the time when they needed to watch it, how it gave them solace, and that they’re not going through it alone.
I can tell from how they write those messages that it’s very personal for them, and they were being very vulnerable when they’re sharing it with me. It just meant the world. What makes my job meaningful and fulfilling is when I know that my work has made an impact in that way in someone’s life. Even if it’s just one person, to have multiple people gain courage or relief, or whatever it is that they may have felt after watching the show. I’m just so beyond grateful for that.
Especially with Kitty’s coming out scene in Season 2, I feel like that’s something very special for young people—to see a support system like that.
Yeah! Yuri’s coming out, and then Kitty’s coming out are just really all very interesting. For Kitty, it wasn’t very obvious from the very beginning of Season 1 that she’s queer. She wasn’t aware of it fully. And then as Season 1 progressed, she was like letting herself feel everything that she was feeling without judging it. I feel like that journey in itself is a beautiful thing too.
Yuri is trying to find herself and is kind of going on this journey of self-discovery and goes through this sort of tumultuous time with Juliana, what was it like to channel all those confusing emotions?
I don’t know if I can articulate it quite well, because everything was an instinctual process. As an actor, I try to analyze the scene before, after I read it, and analyze all the things I can with my head. At the end of the day, it has to be something that comes from instinct or intuition. Obviously techniques are involved to help the process along of exploring the character and getting into her and embodying her.
Season 2 was definitely tougher in terms of preparation because I was trying to build a whole foundation for this world. I think in the middle of the process I realized that Yuri is confused and lost. So, it’s OK that I’m confused and lost in this whole process too. I don’t have to have everything figured out because my character doesn’t have everything figured out. So why would I, right? I think when I thought of it that way, it relieved a lot of burden on myself to have figured out everything beforehand.
A major turning point in the season is Yuri kissing Kitty after they discover who Simon is. What was your reaction when you first read the scenes, and what was filming the scenes like?
I was just screaming to myself as I read that part of how they kiss in that dorm room. I was like, “Oh my god, it happened!” The actual filming part of it was quite easy. Like, not easy, but smooth sailing, I would say, because Anna and I have already built a very comfortable relationship and rapport. So we are very comfortable working with each other in general, and we rehearsed that specific scene with the director the night or two prior to shooting that scene.
The only thing was it was the first day of working with the director where we had to shoot such an important, intimate scene with the new director as well. So that was nerve-wracking, because obviously we haven’t worked with this person. However, we have to shoot this very momentous scene for both characters. In the end, the director was lovely. He was very generous in making us feel comfortable. Anna and I were very comfortable vocalizing whatever we needed to talk about and discussing the kind of choreography of it all on the day. Honestly, I think I can speak for both me and Anna, that we were both pretty comfortable and we were happy with how the scene turned out.
So Season 2 ends with some disappointing news for Yuri, Where do you think Yuri’s future is heading?
Honestly, I don’t know. A part of me thinks that even though her family is broke, the biggest deal to her is Juliana. I don’t even know if her family’s financial situation hit her yet. I don’t think she even realizes what the repercussions of that is in her life.
But so I think so far, at least in Season 2, she’s still very preoccupied with Juliana and how she thought they were going to get back together, but they haven’t. That’s really disappointing, and I feel like that’s always on her mind. If we do have season three, maybe it’s time for her to deal with what it’s like not having the financial privilege that she’s always had. That’s going to be another interesting thing for her to kind of work on.
Do you think Yuri and Kitty can end up together in the future?
Just based on what I see mostly in the comments, I think the Kitty/Min Ho shippers are very dominating. I feel like that’s what the show is gonna give them because we don’t want to piss off too many people. There’s a higher chance of Kitty/Min Ho shippers getting what they want than Kitty/Yuri shippers I would say. But I don’t know, I’m not a writer, so who knows?
I saw that you’re a fan of rom-coms. What rom-coms do you think XO, Kitty is a mix of and which rom-com do you want the next season to be inspired by?
Honestly, the enemies-to-lovers trope is so common in K-dramas that I feel like I could say anything and it would fit that trope. I haven’t watched recent rom-coms, but I would say K-dramas from the early 2000s like Secret Garden, Boys Over Flowers, or Lovers in Paris. We’ve already played with so many tropes. We’ve done enemies-to-friends, enemies-to-lovers, frenemies-to-friends. Like, what is left? I don’t know!
Whatever it is at the end of it, I just hope that everyone ends up with everyone they want. Maybe that’s not gonna please everyone, but it is what it is. The characters will go on their own journeys and find who’s right for them, even if that means choosing themselves over someone else. The writers and directors clearly studied the K-drama formula so well that they’re doing such a good job of integrating it into an American show.
Season two of XO, Kitty is now available to stream on Netflix.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.