Exclusive Interview
‘XO, Kitty’s Sang Heon Lee Spills on Kitty & Min Ho’s Original First Meeting Scene
What To Know
- Actor Sang Heon Lee revealed that XO, Kitty originally filmed a different first meeting between Kitty and Min Ho.
- Lee shared behind-the-scenes details about filming the entrance scene to Swooon.
- The Netflix show’s third season debuted on April 2.
Min Ho Moon’s entrance in XO, Kitty Season 1 is nothing short of iconic. The scene sets the tone for his sassy character, but it turns out that the show almost gave Kitty (Anna Cathcart) and Min Ho an entirely different meet-hate moment, according to star Sang Heon Lee.
In the version fans know and love in Season 1, Kitty sits at her LAX gate, waiting to board a flight to South Korea. She’s about to surprise her long-distance boyfriend, Dae (Choi Min-yeong), by revealing that she’s enrolled at his fancy boarding school, KISS. In a stroke of fate, Dae’s bestie, Min Ho, is waiting for the same plane as Kitty. As he heads over to board the flight, he knocks his bag into Kitty. She tries to strike up a conversation when she notices his KISS luggage tag, but Min Ho writes her off and pretends not to know English.
XO, Kitty fans have circulated some photos of Min Ho and Kitty from what appeared to be a deleted plane scene, suspecting that the two almost had a different first interaction. Lee confirmed it when he spoke to Swooon about Min Ho and Kitty’s greatest moments over the past three seasons. “That’s weird because no one asked me that, or no one asked me in any interview,” he began before confirming that the photos were indeed from an alternate meeting scene.
JENNY HAN POST THIS DELETED AIRPLANE MOONCOVEY FLIRT SCENE AND MY LIFE IS YOURS pic.twitter.com/7tizSRedwp
— 🌚😸 (polin version) (@rainy_day16) April 8, 2026
“Interestingly enough on the first day, when I was on set, we were already in the plane, and we were in the plane set, I was already seated with my eye mask,” he recalled.
Lee said that Kitty originally walked onto the plane, bumping her bag into Min Ho rather than the other way around. “And then she was apologizing to me or to Min Ho, saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ And then she had a glimpse of the KISS, whatever that was, like a bag or whatever. And then she tries talking to him, saying, ‘I go to KISS.'”
Both versions, however, have that memorable “no English” line, which Lee reenacted for us. “And then he lifts up his eye mask, saying, ‘No English.’ And then he turns [it] back on,” he said.
“I like that scene, to be honest, but I guess they wanted a grand or better entrance,” Lee continued. “I hated that [slow-motion walk] scene because I was having such a hard time. It was like 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. and we walked that scene like 17 times, and I was just thinking, what am I doing wrong?” (It paid off, of course!)
Which Min Ho and Kitty meet-hate do you prefer? Do you hope Netflix releases the deleted version one day? Let us know in the comments below!
XO, Kitty, Seasons 1-3, Streaming Now, Netflix
