How to Get Cast on ‘XO, Kitty’

Launched as a spinoff to Netflix’s adaptation of Han’s bestselling YA trilogy, “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” “XO, Kitty” follows the titular teen matchmaker (Anna Cathcart)—youngest sister of Lara Jean (portrayed by Lana Condor in the films)—as she moves to South Korea for school (and for her long-distance boyfriend). Kitty finds herself motivated to attend the Korean Independent School of Seoul, aka KISS, because of love, in part, but also because her late mom attended the institution. But shortly after arriving, Kitty finds she doesn’t have it all figured out because—spoiler alert!—she ends the season locked in a love square, of sorts. Kitty breaks up with her boyfriend, Dae (Minyeong Choi); learns her nemesis-turned-roommate, Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee), has feelings for her; and grapples with her mounting feelings for the resident Queen Bee, Kitty’s enemy-turned-friend, Yuri (Gia Kim), whose ex-girlfriend, Julianna (Regan Aliyah), has just returned. Now, with a new semester ahead, anything can happen to Kitty and her crew as Season 2 welcomes new faces and a letter from her mother’s past.

Season 1 of “XO, Kitty” featured:

• Anna Cathcart as Kitty
• Minyeong Choi and Dae
• Gia Kim as Yuri
• Sang Heon Lee as Min Ho
• Anthony Keyvan as Q
• Peter Thurnwald as Alex Finnerty
• Jocelyn Shelfo as Madison
• Yunjin Kim as Jina
• Han Bi Ryu as Eunice
• Théo Augier as Florian
• Michael K. Lee as Professor Lee
• Sunny Oh as Mihee
• Regan Aliyah as Julianna

Lyndsey Baldasare and David Rapaport (“The Flash,” “You”) of Rapaport/Baldasare Casting and Su Kim (“Pachinko”) served as the primary casting directors on Season 1 of “XO, Kitty.”

As Rapaport told Backstage, TV has become a hotspot for new talent. “I have an opportunity to discover more novice talent in television. All the superhero films out there are great. [They] all serve and support this culture, which is awesome. [But] I think, for the most part, films focus on established actors,” he said. “In TV, I’m casting [up] to 15 roles a week on each show, and the actors are typically pretty unknown. They’re not household names. It gives me a chance to really discover and audition people who are closest to the character for a show…as opposed to casting them for name recognition or face recognition. It’s really about who gives the best performance; so to me it’s exciting in TV on a weekly basis to be able to really put forth the best talent I’ve been seeing.”

While series regular roles often remain under the radar, accessible only to those with an agent, Minyeong Choi (Dae) landed his lead role through an open casting call. “From the day I sent my self-tape to the day I heard that I was cast, [I think] it only took a month,” Choi told Teen Vogue. “It was really quick. At first, I didn’t even expect to get the role because it was my first time acting in English. And it was my first time auditioning for a project that wasn’t a Korean project. I [dreamed] of Hollywood, but I never thought: Now’s the time. [When] I saw the casting call, I thought it could be a good chance to experience how the U.S. audition process goes.”

Choi approached the audition as an opportunity to learn, but the process moved at breakneck speed; he was cast and then quickly ushered into a Zoom chemistry read with Cathcart (Kitty) and Lee (Min Ho). Though Lee wasn’t officially part of the cast yet, Choi said their clear connection led them “straight to filming.” 

But how did Choi adjust to speaking in a language that wasn’t his native Korean? “Acting in English was really challenging for me,” he said. “That was one of the most important things that I was focusing on while prepping. I wasn’t looking at the script all day. I just tried to hang out with the cast. I tried to talk and listen a lot because I had to improve my English. And actually, it did work. I was not able to talk like this when I was doing the Zoom meetings.”

Meanwhile, Lee—whose real-life sister, Gia Kim, also has a starring role as Yuri—finally auditioned because she convinced him to do so. “My sister Gia…sent me this Instagram link about an open casting call and suggested I go for it. Before even heading to the audition, I thought there was no way I’d get picked. What are the chances, right? They would also be filming in Los Angeles, and I didn’t think they would fly anyone out there,” he told Buro. “However, just three days before the deadline, I decided to give it a go. What did I have to lose? That’s why I went for it. After three rounds of auditions, I landed the role, and we subsequently did 15 to 16 weeks of filming in Korea.”

With Season 2 of “XO, Kitty” set to debut in January, there’s no word yet on when (or if) the series will get a third installment. However, Netflix renewed the show only four weeks after it initially premiered on Netflix in 2023, so stay tuned to see if Kitty and her crew will be returning to KISS for another year!

While there aren’t any open auditions for “XO, Kitty” at this time, we recommend following the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE) on both Instagram and X, as the group has posted notices for casting calls in the past. 

A post from November 2021 offered a breakdown of the series regular roles that CDs were seeking ahead of the show’s first season, while an Instagram post outlined roles Rapaport and Baldasare were looking to add on Season 2. In the meantime, bookmark our main Netflix casting page, as it features the streamer’s current casting needs, and explore our guide on how to audition for Netflix so you’re up-to-date on what it takes when the opportunity does come knocking.

Embrace the uncertainty. Much like her character, Cathcart realizes that she does not have it all figured out; but as she told Teen Vogue, there’s peace in accepting you don’t always know how things are going to go. “You don’t have to have the answers,” she noted. “It’s more important to focus on being OK with not knowing them and then trying to find them in the process. You’ll eventually find them; they’re always changing, all the time.” 

Ultimately, she opts to focus on hope, not fear, because it’s impossible to control everything going on around you. “The big things in life, the scariest things, are also the most exciting,” Cathcart added. “That’s why they’re scary; it’s because they have the possibility to change [your life into] something you can’t imagine. Things could be way better than you could ever imagine.” 

Keep yourself grounded. Though he’s relatively new to the acting industry, Lee maintains a wise view on stardom, telling Buro that highs and lows will come and go, but he’s prepared to weather the waves in the face of failure thanks to one phrase: “This, too, shall pass.” 

“It’s something that I picked up from an actor’s roundtable on YouTube featuring Tom Hanks, and it has stuck with me ever since. [Hanks] said, ‘If you have a happy moment, remember this, too, shall pass. If you [have] a sad moment, don’t worry: This, too, shall pass. If you feel like you’re the shit, don’t worry about that. Because it, too, shall pass,’ ” Lee recalled. “And because I keep telling myself this, it keeps me humble in some ways. If I feel like I’m too up in the clouds, or if I feel depressed or a bit too lonely, I’ll tell myself not to worry about it as it will eventually pass. It’s helped me so much!”

Vulnerability begets flexibility. Rapaport said he’s always rooting for each actor to do well during the audition process. “I really want actors to come in and feel comfortable and do their best,” Rapaport said. Yet while it’s difficult to open up in a room full of strangers, the ability to leave it all on the table ultimately affords the actor additional flexibility. 

“I understand how hard it can be. I give actors so much credit to walk into a room they’ve never been in before and feel comfortable or vulnerable enough to share with us and show us their unique selves. It’s a difficult process, but I’m always looking for someone who sees it as an opportunity to act, to play, to have fun, and who wants to connect with the material and show us what they came up with,” he told us. “A big mistake a lot of actors tend to do is they try to impress me or the producers by guessing what we want. The whole purpose of auditions is to see what they can come up with and discover what they can bring to the game. If we knew what we wanted, we wouldn’t be doing auditions—we’d be making straight offers.”