XO, Kitty Cast Guide: Meet Everyone in Kitty Song Covey’s Squad
This article contains major character or plot details.
When Anna Cathcart was cast as Kitty Song Covey in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, she didn’t know she’d play the character for the rest of her teenage years, first in two more films and now the spin-off series XO, Kitty.
“I truly had no idea how much [Kitty] was going to change my life,” she told Tudum about vying for the role. “I had just turned 14 and at the time I was auditioning for a one-off little romance movie (that I absolutely loved). I was ecstatic [when I was cast], but so unaware of the incredible universe that I was about to enter.”
XO, Kitty follows the 16-year-old youngest Covey sister as she attends the Korean Independent School of Seoul (KISS) in Seoul, South Korea for her junior year of high school — the same age her late mother was when she also attended the school. Last semester was a chance for her to reunite with her long-distance boyfriend, Dae (Minyeong Choi), and make new friends like Yuri (Gia Kim), Q (Anthony Keyvan), and Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee). But as she explains in the first few minutes of Season 2, “Last semester ended with so much drama. It was not supposed to be that way. Dae and I broke up, I fell for Yuri, and I got kicked out of KISS.”
Thanks to Yuri pulling a few strings, Kitty is back this semester, ready to be a new version of herself and free of drama and romantic chaos. Kitty 2.0, if you will. But you know what they say about the best laid plans…
Read on to check in with Kitty’s squad in the series, and meet some of its newest members:
Anna Cathcart
The would-be matchmaker (and catalyst for the events that play out in the TAtB series, as Kitty sends out her sister’s not-meant-for-consumption love letters in the mail) decides to spend the new school year at her mother’s alma mater. As a bonus (okay, maybe as another major incentive), KISS is also where her long-distance boyfriend, Dae — whom Kitty met four years prior in To All the Boys: Always and Forever — is a student. They break up by the end of Season 1, but you never forget your first love. “Something that’s beautiful about Kitty is even if she tried, she couldn’t not follow her heart,” Cathcart tells Tudum. “She listens to her heart so much and lives so loudly.”
After Kitty got expelled in the Season 1 finale for living in the boys’ dorm (it was a matter of necessity, of course), she’s back at KISS thanks to a Hail Mary call from Yuri to her mom, Principal Lim (Yunjun Kim). But after realizing she’s bisexual and has feelings for Yuri, Kitty returns to quite the challenging living situation: Yuri and her girlfriend Juliana are her new suitemates. Then there’s the lingering love confession she received at the end of last season from a very unexpected source… Dae’s best friend Min Ho. And we can’t forget the mysterious “Simon,” whose identity Kitty is yet to uncover. You know, the guy her mom wrote helped make her world “so much bigger” in the letter she wrote to her best friend Jina many moons ago?
Long may our chaos queen reign.
Odd Squad, Descendants 2 and 3
Minyeong Choi
A long distance relationship is hard — especially when it’s been long distance for four whole years. But, even though Dae and Kitty met when they were in seventh grade, they have talked on the phone constantly ever since.
Season 1 proved complicated for their relationship, as Dae entered a fake-dating arrangement of convenience with Yuri as soon as Kitty stepped foot onto campus at KISS. But he and Kitty end the season realizing they mean so, so much to each other, even if they’re better off as friends. He enters Season 2 intent on keeping Kitty in his life, even though he’s not over her yet romantically.
Choi told Tudum that Dae is an “ordinary guy. What I loved about him was that he was warmhearted and he was sincere about everyone and he wanted to treat everyone [well] for real.”
Dream Palace
Gia Kim
Rich, gorgeous social media star Yuri is the daughter of two extremely successful parents: a high-powered businessman and the principal of KISS. She’s a paparazzi magnet, which means she has to keep her deepest secrets close to the vest.
XO, Kitty in particular has been a fun project for Kim because, as she told Tudum, “I love love. I love rom-coms. I love romance.” Kim was especially drawn to how the series plays with typical rom-com tropes. “Once two characters hate each other, I’m rooting for them to be together.”
That rom-com trope played out for Kitty when it came to her feelings for Yuri in Season 1, when she realized her (fake) romantic rival for Dae’s affections became someone she was interested in herself. She never got the chance to confess her feelings for Yuri, but they end the season as close friends — just as their mothers were during their days at KISS.
Previously In
Sang Heon Lee
The ultra-privileged Min Ho is used to getting his way — especially after his parents’ messy divorce left him to his own devices most of the time. While it may seem as though Min Ho cares more about his skincare routine than anything else, he’s actually fiercely loyal to his friends, including longtime buddy Dae.
Like his character, Lee has also traveled extensively. “I think he’s a very spoiled version of me if I was young, because I’ve also studied in different parts of the world. High school in Hong Kong, a little bit of Korea and university was England. [There are] so many places I’ve been, there’s so many people that I have interacted with from different parts of the world,” he said.
Speaking of traveling around the world, Season 1 ends with Min Ho trading his first-class ticket back to LA for an aisle seat in coach (gasp!) next to Kitty. “I thought maybe you could use a friend,” he tells her, knowing she was flying home after getting expelled. When she tells him that she and Dae broke up at the airport, he lets her in on a big secret he’s been keeping: he’s fallen in love with her. It might have seemed like he was annoyed with her all season, but who’s to say enemies never become lovers?
Gran Turismo, Secret Ingredient
Anthony Keyvan
Fellow American Q quickly becomes Kitty’s best friend and confidante. He is one of the school’s few openly gay students. And, Keyvan told Tudum, “the writers decided to make him half Iranian, half Filipino like me!”
“This was the first time I’d ever played a character that was 100% authentically me, and that’s not an opportunity that a lot of people like me get,” he said. “It was absolutely refreshing. It was the most fulfilling opportunity to get to do something like that, to bring representation to not only myself, but other people who look like me; Filipinos, half Filipinos, half Iranians, half Middle Eastern people, half Asian people. It’s just not something we get to see all the time in media.”
Q and Kitty end the season as tight as ever, and he’s more than ready to welcome his fellow chaos queen back to campus in Season 2.
Love, Victor, NCIS
Regan Aliyah
Yuri’s (no longer secret) girlfriend is back at KISS this semester — much to Yuri’s delight and Kitty’s chagrin, as Kitty is very much not over Yuri. Not to mention, all three of them are suitemates now. Nothing to worry about here. “I love Juliana, I love her character,” says showrunner Jessica O’Toole. “And Regan is also such a delight as a person.”
Ironheart, BF for Hire
Peter Thurnwald
One of Kitty’s new teachers in Season 1 is from Melbourne, Australia. Just like Kitty, he's also assimilating to life at KISS.
And, also like Kitty, he came to KISS to learn more about his parents — in adoptee Alex’s case, his birth parents, whose identities Kitty helps him discover over the course of the semester. Kitty’s sleuthing skills from the TAtB movies are put to excellent use in XO, Kitty, that’s for sure.
Bump, Young Rock, Players
Michael K. Lee
In Season 1, we get to know Professor Lee as a super-tough teacher who gives Kitty the wake-up call that she needs to take her school work more seriously than would be expected at her US high school. But is there a softer side to this by-the-books instructor?
Turns out, there is: He’s a musician at heart, and he fell in love with Principal Lim — yup, Yuri’s mom — in high school. Season 2 sees him take on a few roles as the new principal of KISS, and, more importantly, as the birth father of a son he never knew he had. (And, yes, we’re referring to Alex.)
A Korean Odyssey, The Shield
Audrey Huynh
A small-town girl from Ohio, Stella is Kitty’s new roommate this semester. She wants to be Kitty’s friend, and she’s harboring a crush on Min Ho, “which is fine with Kitty,” O’Toole says, “because she’s just told Min Ho that she’s not into him.”
But, like many a character in a K-drama, Stella has an agenda you might not expect. “We got really lucky with the actor, Audrey,” adds O’Toole. “The character with another actor who’s not as skilled as Audrey might not have worked.”
Wyrm
Sasha Bhasin
Praveena brings a new energy to KISS this semester as a prospective new romantic interest for our favorite matchmaker. “She’s really cool, confident, kind of ballsy, and puts herself out there with Kitty,” teases O’Toole. Praveena is also based on people O’Toole knew growing up outside of Washington, D.C. “We had a lot of people whose parents might or might not have been in the CIA.”
With parents in the State Department, Praveena is exactly the kind of student O’Toole could envision attending KISS, someone worldly after moving around so much. “I liked that as somebody to match up against Kitty,” she says.
Brave the Dark, The Pitt
Joshua Lee
Jin is Q’s rival on the track team this season, and doesn’t necessarily play nice. But he isn’t a straight-up bully — and his edge might prove more than a little intriguing to Kitty’s companion in chaos. “We might like to forget or maybe we have forgotten, but we were all doing messy stuff [as teenagers], O’Toole reminds us.
Gangnam Project
Han Bi Ryu
Han Bi Ryu played a small supporting role in Season 1 of XO, Kitty, but her stage presence really shines in an expanded role in Season 2. A triple threat who can dance, act, and sing, she shows off her popstar chops on-screen this season. “[Han Bi] stood out as an actor to Jenny Han and me in the first season,” says O’Toole. “She just had these little moments and she was really good.”
Cheer Up, Mr. Lee, Come and Hug Me, Local Hero
Jocelyn Shelfo
The daughter of a business associate of Yuri’s dad, Madison is a K-pop obsessed student at KISS.
The Summer I Turned Pretty
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Yunjin Kim
The principal of KISS in Season 1 is also an alum of the school — and mom of Kitty’s classmate, Yuri.
She and Kitty’s mom Eve were the best of friends as students at KISS, and by the end of the season, she reconnects with that part of herself and is better able to show up as a mom to Yuri — and to Alex.
She resigns as principal before Season 2 begins because of last semester’s academic scandals.
Lost, Shiri, Mistresses
Watch them on Netflix
Théo Augier
Another one of KISS’s international students, the very cosmopolitan Florian is French and Greek. Like many of XO, Kitty’s characters, he’s bound to catch someone’s eye. But can he balance his personal life with the demands of a high-pressure school?
Unfortunately, he can’t, since he confesses to Q that he cheated on the end of term exams. Making the hard but right choice, Q turned his boyfriend in to protect his best friend Dae’s scholarship, which spiraled into Florian and other KISS students getting expelled for their academic dishonesty.
