“It reminds me why I do the job that I do,” XO, Kitty star Gia Kim says of the personal messages she’s received from fans telling her that her character Yuri has changed their lives.
The 32-year-old actress’ break out role as Yuri in the To All The Boys spinoff quickly became a favorite of fans online after the first season dropped in 2023. Early into the season one, it was revealed that the character, a student at the fictional Seoul-based international school KISS, was queer and struggling to find acceptance from her high-status family.
Yuri’s storyline has resonated with viewers. “The fans get really, really vulnerable with me,” Kim tells The Hollywood Reporter. “This is literally not just something abstract. It’s so real. It’s touching people’s hearts in ways that I can’t even imagine.”
Back for season two, Kim’s character of Yuri finds herself caught between her finally-returned-to-school girlfriend Juliana (Regan Aliyah) and the show’s protagonist Kitty (Anna Cathcart). Below, Kim speaks with THR about her character’s complicated love life, hoping Yuri is shown grace for her choices and what projects she’s manifesting next.
How are you feeling about Yuri this season? She ended season one in a really interesting place and with Juliana returning, the dynamics have changed. What was it like showing a new side of a character that you have likely become comfortable playing?
I don’t know if I found anything more uncomfortable for season two. It was honestly just different sets of problems that Yuri was facing. In season one, the external struggle is with [Yuri’s] mom most of the time, and having to do with being accepted for who I am and my sexuality, and all of that. That’s still ongoing, it’s simmering under the surface. Actually, it is still very much a problem for Yuri’s life, it’s just not as shown or dramatized in the season, because my mom doesn’t appear on screen. You can definitely tell Yuri’s still troubling in her family relationship, and now there are more problems because real life relationships have real life problems and that sometimes gets amplified when you’re physically together, as opposed to being around your long distance.
I feel like this season is just different sets of problems, with more to do directly with bumping heads with [Juliana] in terms of how we deal with each other when we’re physically together. I don’t know if it was more difficult. I think overall season one was more difficult in the preparation process of it all, but season two came a little bit easier because I had the foundation of season one.
How do you and Regan [Aliyah] work to make that dynamic between Yuri and Juliana believable?
I think in the beginning of season one we definitely talked about, “Oh, let’s give our characters a backstory that the writers haven’t necessarily told us.” You know? Like how long have we been together. All of those things that actors do to give more of a creative resources to work with, to build the character. So we did that at the beginning of season one.
And then, I think, the rest of it, honestly it’s not like we get together every single time we have a scene together. I think that because we built that foundation in season one, as far and few there were in terms of meeting Juliana in person. Season two came and then obviously we have a lot more scenes together physically in this season.
I think it was really organic, maybe it just has something to do with the chemistry of two actors who’ve already worked together. It’s just like we both knew what the scene was going to be about, we showed up, and then we just knew what we were both expecting to get out of this scene without necessarily talking about it. It really just worked out organically, I’m going to say.
The roommate dynamic between Kitty, Yuri, Juliana and Stella plays a pretty big part of the first few episodes of season two. What were those shooting days like?
That was really fun. Dorm situations are definitely a playground for drama, you know? I never really stayed in a dorm throughout middle or high school, so I don’t know from experience. But where there’s a lot of people, a lot of hormones in one room, things are bound to happen. I feel like the writers really made good use of that situation. The dorm rooms, it was group scenes, but they were mini-group scenes, so it wasn’t as stressful as doing like, I don’t know, the prom scene. You know? Where there’s like hundreds of actors in this one whole space. It was intimate but also more social. Those days were a little more social. It’s a good mix of a group dynamic and also the intimate dynamic too.
Gia Kim returns as Yuri in ‘XO, Kitty.’ Makeup by Suzie K and Hair by Brian Fisher at Forward Artists.
Tiziano Lugli/@tizianolugli
Early into the season, Kitty and Yuri share a kiss. When everyone finds out things implode for everyone. How did you feel about that story for your character? Where would you like to see it go?
Honestly, yes, it leaves on that huge happening before they go right into the ski cabin, which is a whole other beast of a storyline, because so many things happen at the ski cabin. Oh boy, because it’s such a… I mean the word cheating already evokes a certain response from anyone who comes to experience cheating, whether that’s because they’ve been cheated on or because they’ve cheated.
So, I feel like that word itself already kind of feels like a strong connotation world. I was a little bit concerned initially at how fans or viewers might take it. Because obviously my being the perpetrator… You know, everyone knows it’s wrong, right?
But I do think that, and I’m not saying this because it’s my character. But I do think that there is some sort of grace to be had for people who are in situations where… I’m not saying cheaters get excuses, but I do think that it is hard to say anything is black and white when it comes to real life people problems. I do think that people tend to easily just immediately jump the gun to, “Oh, the cheater is the bad person and the person who’s been cheated on is the poor victim.”
But, I think, I don’t know, there’s been… I think also in my more recent personal experiences, where I have had just run-ins, or indirect encounters with other people’s relationships, whether that’s actually married couples or people in open relationships and all of these different relationships that actually exist in this world, I think… When it’s actually in Yuri’s shoes I do think that it was literally in the whim of the moment. and it’s not like she calculated the way it was going to go.
I hope the viewers can give her some grace and try to empathize as much as they can, even though obviously it wasn’t a smart choice. But I do feel like everyone at least once in their life do something that we call stupid. Or something we wish we hadn’t done but it’s happened. And I feel like what we do with it after speaks more for the person than that they did wrong. I wish the viewers would give her a little grace and, I don’t know, just kind of hope to see her growing arc more after.
Obviously there’s a hope that this show lasts a long time. But in a post XO, Kitty world, what do you see for yourself as an actor? What do you hope to do after this?
Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this in any interview, but XO, Kitty was really out of left field for me as an opportunity that came around as an actor, especially for my first big commercial role. Prior to XO, Kitty, playing Yuri, I always gravitated towards and was playing, I found myself being cast in roles that were more, in terms of genre, more like darks or dramas.
Yuri in XO, Kitty, it was just completely something that I didn’t expect for myself. Neither would have my friends or teachers in acting school who knew me as a person. When we all talked about what we wanted, what we see for each other, we were all talking about some political drama. Some like some dark series where I’m a killer. I don’t know. Something very different in terms of tone from XO, Kitty, really.
I think because of that, it took me out of that comfort zone, which in turn has obviously been very rewarding, because it made me explore parts of myself and acting that I didn’t think I would explore. I do think that as an actor, I still do gravitate a little more towards… As much as I love comedy, I love watching comedy, it’s one of my favorite genres, and romantic comedy at that. I’m a sucker for romantic comedy. But I think as an actor I definitely want to explore something completely different.
I think I’d love to, now that I’ve done this, I want to go in the opposite direction and kind of play with all the range and everything in between. I think as an actor I’m manifesting maybe like some sort of dark comedy even, or something very different in tone from XO, Kitty, for sure.
