Exclusive Interview

‘XO, Kitty’ Stars Talk Kitty & Min Ho’s ‘Rollercoaster’ Romance in Season 3 (VIDEO)

The slow burn is over. XO, Kitty‘s Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee) declares his love for Kitty (Anna Cathcart) at the end of Season 1, but Kitty doesn’t feel the same way — until she has a change of heart in the Season 2 finale. Even then, Kitty doesn’t make her feelings known immediately, so fans had to wait until the Season 3 premiere to find out if they’d actually get together. (Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for XO, Kitty Season 3.)

Though they faced some major hurdles, Kitty and Min Ho became a couple at long last in XO, Kitty Season 3. Going into filming the third season, Cathcart and Lee were well aware of how intensely fans were pushing for their characters to get together. “While we were shooting, I feel like there was a lot of like, we need to make this as grand as we want it to be and make sure we live up to this excitement and this anticipation,” Cathcart told Swooon in a joint interview with her costar. “So it definitely was very important to us to make it feel big and worth the wait.”

The development made Lee, whose character spends a whole season yearning, feel “a sense of relief.” He noted, “Min Ho finally found someone that he wants to spend the time with, and also it was sort of cute and endearing, the way how all these little bubbly moments come out now that he is in a relationship with Kitty.”

Kitty reveals her feelings for Min Ho in Episode 1. They share a cinematic kiss on the beach before more angst arrives — Kitty has to spend the summer apart from Min Ho to support her brokenhearted sister (Lana Condor) in New York. In Episode 2, Kitty almost ends their burgeoning relationship when everything starts going wrong upon her return to KISS. But Min Ho saves the day by making her Senior Sunset gathering happen, proving how much he cares about her. It’s the first of Min Ho’s many “perfect boyfriend” moments.

Both Lee and Cathcart had fun playing into those happy moments between their characters, even if some came across to Lee as a little corny. “But it’s that innocent love and that innocent romantic way of him expressing his found love towards Kitty, so I’m happy for him,” the actor explained.

“And it’s just so fun to get to have Kitty be in a happy relationship and do all the cute things like in the montage [in Episode 3], and see them just get to really soak it all in and enjoy it, because they’ve been yearning for it for years,” Cathcart added. “And I hope fans are freaking out as much as we were.”

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Season 3 marks a shift for XO, Kitty by giving its titular character one love interest instead of multiple. “I’m really happy that we got to see Kitty in love and happy in a relationship because I think she’s constantly been on a crazy rollercoaster of ups and downs and turmoil and messing things up and feeling like there’s just so much,” Cathcart reflected on the change.

Lee added, “Everyone has their own thing going on at the same time, and you can tell that the characters are growing like mentally and physically. It’s just more grounded, really, and I’m happy to see that as well.”

Cathcart pointed out that Kitty and Min Ho have their own turbulence, even without rival love interests. She added, “But I feel like, just to see her as a girlfriend and as someone who’s committing to someone and who can exist and live in the cute montages and all the things of just getting to be in love is so special. And I had so much fun with that, of being like, this is what Kitty’s wanted and deserved for so long. And I think it’s extra fun for fans as well to see it really play out and have a true, proper relationship, and not just like the yearning that we were talking about.”

As it plays out, Kitty finds herself first feeling out of place in Min Ho’s high-end world. But the biggest issue arises when Kitty mistakenly assumes that Min Ho got Eunice (Han Bi Ryu) pregnant in Episode 5. Kitty doesn’t even hear her boyfriend out when she confronts him about it. When Kitty later realizes and admits that she was wrong, Min Ho still ends things with her then and there, deciding they can’t move forward if Kitty doesn’t trust him.

Cathcart was surprised to see Kitty’s insecure side come out in Season 3. “I think something that we’ve known Kitty to be is very strong in who she is and quite confident,” the actress said. “And honestly, even if she doesn’t see it sometimes, I think she’s very courageous and quite fearless with her love and following her heart and being honest with herself and all of that. So, to see a character like that be very insecure and very stressed and overthinking and not confident in the people that she loves and in the people that are around her, I think, was new.”

It makes sense, Cathcart believes, because Kitty’s stakes are higher with her new romance. “But [it’s] important to see a character also kind of waver sometimes, and important to know like that happens when someone, all of a sudden, has something they don’t want to lose,” she said. “I think that can bring out a lot of parts in themselves that they haven’t really had to face before, so I’m glad we explored that. But I think in moments, I was like, ‘This is not the Kitty I’ve known for so long because she’s so scared for the first time, and that’s not really what we know her to be.’”

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Lee said Min Ho’s choice to split from Kitty, albeit temporarily, is in part due to all the stress he’s under with his father, his job, and his school life. “He’s human at the end of the day, where he can collapse with all the things that piled up on him, and he ended up making a rational decision that he later on regretted, such as thinking like, ‘Alright, you know what? I thought I could do this, but now we’re done here,'” Lee explained. “But then later on, he realizes, ‘What did I just do?’”

Min Ho doesn’t officially choose to rekindle his relationship with Kitty until the Season 3 finale. “I think that’s the whole point, showing that, oh, right. Emotions can be really hard sometimes when you’re in hard situations, but as long as you know that you’ve made mistakes, or what you’ve done wrong, it’s okay,” Lee said. “Just pick it up and admit what you’ve done wrong or admit what happened just then, and move on for the better future.”

XO, Kitty, Season 3, Streaming Now, Netflix