It’s an early Monday evening in Los Angeles when Gia Kim dials in for our Zoom call. She’s fresh-faced; a calm composure set into her face lines. Halfway through our conversation, I bring up her most recent transformation, her bixie cut. This being the first time Kim’s gone this short with her tresses, I could tell this wasn’t a decision that was made lightly. “For a long time, I kept my long hair because of social conditioning, with Korea also having a clear set of beauty standards. My mum would always prefer me with long hair too, and her opinions mattered a lot to me. I’ve wanted to have short hair for so long, and I didn’t realise it could feel so liberating. Not having the crutch of my long hair is making me embody myself more, without having something to fall back on.”
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There seems to be a through line that draws this new phase of Kim’s life, to her on-screen character in XO, Kitty, Yuri Han. The chaebol heiress and Queen bee of the fictional Korean Independent School of Seoul (KISS) campus, Yuri has been an integral character in Kitty’s life since Day 1. From seeming enemies-in-love when she plays Dae’s fake girlfriend in Season 1 to their confused relationship in Season 2, her role in Kitty’s life has been shifting. By the end of the second season however, everything in her personal life unravels when she learns that her family is going bankrupt, and her ex, Juliana, has moved on with Praveena. Which brings us to the Yuri in Season 3; her life stripped back down to zero, as she relearns who she is on her own.
The newly-released season charts a new course for Yuri—away from any of the romance that came with her character’s growth in the previous two seasons. Now, she’s the girl who needs to sell her luxury designer clothes to pay a semester’s worth of tuition, and makes mistakes whilst interning for fashion designer Yisoo whom she respects a great deal. Less rooted in any high school drama, Yuri’s path feels reflective of the coming-of-age experience, and any teenager at that age, who is trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do in the future.
Amid the release of Season 3 of XO, Kitty, Kim speaks to Vogue Singapore about Yuri’s evolution in the latest season, the impact of the beloved Netflix series and being open about mental health on social media.
Talk to us about this new character arc for Yuri.
I feel like Yuri’s story arc, from Season 1 to 2 to 3, is really beautiful, because it’s not just a linear line. It really has been a roller coaster for her. She kind of hit rock bottom with losing her girlfriend and then with her family losing money. Everything happens at the same time. I think it’s a really good testament to how life works; that when you hit a low, you’re going to come back up. That’s just what life is. She has a great comeback this season, so I’m very excited for her because this is what I have been wanting for her. It’s her growing, and unravelling. She’s finding her passions and where she wants to go in life.
There’s not much romance with Kitty nor any romance for her this season. It’s Yuri asking “Who am I? What am I going to do? What do I want in life?” So I feel like that’s really important, especially as a 17 or 18-year-old teenager. Those are really big questions to ask and just before university is when we start to think about it. But we’re still so young at that age but it’s kind of the first moment we have to think about it so seriously. So I think I’m excited for Yuri to just blossom through this season.
How would you describe Yuri as a person?
At first glance, Yuri feels like someone you can undermine or dismiss pretty quickly, because she has so much going for her. She is a chaebol daughter, she has the privilege, the money, the popularity, she has it all. So it’s like: “What does she have to complain about?” But at the core of it, she’s always been so unhappy and miserable for most of her life, because she’s had to fake a lot of things and she could never be herself. So I feel like she’s learning to be unapologetically herself. She’s a creative person with a lot of potential.
Do you feel like there’s something you’ve learned about yourself over the years of playing Yuri?
Yeah definitely, I think I’ve been able to find our common ground since the first season. First of all, we are both girls who want to be seen and loved for who we truly are. There’s also a flip side of that, which is being willing to be seen for who I truly am. A part of me realises that it takes me being vulnerable to show who I am. Otherwise, how can I expect people to love me for who I am if I’m not showing or sharing that side of myself? It’s something I’m still learning to do, be it as 33-year-old me or 18-year-old Yuri.
So I feel like that binds me to Yuri because on the surface, we don’t have anything in common other than the fact that we’re girls, we went to international school and we grew up abroad. At the core of it, we just both want to be loved and love, you know, fully and authentically.
This feels like something close to your heart as well, considering how vocal you are about mental health and self-care on social media. With a public persona like yours, how do you decide on the aspects of your ‘personal’ life to share online?
See, having a public persona is something that comes with the job, so for me, I think it’s something that I want to utilise in the best way possible. For me, it’s about finding the most meaningful way. That comes from being able to share my experiences. Because I know for a fact that even if it’s just one person out there, sharing something that I went through is going to resonate and make them feel less lonely, because that’s how I feel when I see someone talking about something online. I’m like: “Oh my God, I feel that way too.” And then, I’m reminded that I’m not going through some very unique human experience. Some of these things are very universal, and it makes me feel less crazy. So, yeah, that’s where I think my motivation to share comes from; knowing that someone out there might resonate, even if it’s not everybody.
The Gia today is older, and more evolved. What does femininity mean to her?
For a long time, I kept my long hair because of social conditioning, with Korea also having a clear set of beauty standards. My mum would always prefer me with long hair too, and her opinions mattered a lot to me and influenced me a lot. I had been waiting for so long, for the ‘right time’ to make this drastic haircut. There were so many factors I considered, and initially I had wanted to shave all of it off but that comes with a stigma of its own almost, because people tend to assume you’re going through a crisis etc. I’ve wanted to have short hair for so long, and I didn’t realise it could feel so liberating.
I say this because a lot of the times when I had long hair, I depended on it a lot as a means of how I was portraying myself to the world. Not having the crutch of my long hair is making me embody myself more, without having something to fall back on. So it feels like a middle finger raised to the beauty standards of women; that having long hair is considered to be the most ‘feminine’ thing. And it’s also saying goodbye to my mother-pleasing tendencies. When she actually found out I cut my hair, she said: “Oh, you look better with long hair.” And that’s exactly what I expected her to say, so I wasn’t fazed by it. But she didn’t linger on it, she just said that one thing, and moved on. It wasn’t a big deal after all, but for myself, it felt like a big moment.
You were also recently confirmed for Paramount’s new K-pop film. Do you feel like the positive reception XO, Kitty has opened up more doors for you around the globe?
It’s interesting because I can only vaguely sense the show’s reception from things like social media or Instagram, or abstract feedback, or sometimes when I run into someone who is a fan and they tell me they’re a fan of the show. It feels a bit surreal because there’s this gap between the character that I’m playing and the person that I am. But I’ve always been glad to be showcasing a specific group of people that I haven’t seen portrayed much in the media: of Asian kids or international kids going to an international school and speaking multiple languages, that may not necessarily be the one that’s prevalent in that country. It’s still kind of a pretty niche category of people, so that was exciting to portray.
But yes, for the film we actually finished shooting it last year in Korea. I spent quite some time back home last year because I shot Season 3 and then a few months later, I was back to shoot the film. It was interesting because this film is about a girl who pursues K-pop and it brought me back to a specific chapter of my life in university, when I was trying to pursue music.I’m playing sister to the main character and she’s sort of a cheerleader for this character and this made me think about how I can be a cheerleader for myself in a better way. I wanted to do more of that for myself.
Watch XO, Kitty on Netflix.
