*Minor spoilers for XO, Kitty season 2 below*
A lot can change in just a few years. Just ask Joshua Hyunho Lee, who in 2021 left a corporate job in finance to fulfill his dreams of becoming an actor.
In the past three years, he made his Broadway debut on the musical KPOP and played a K-pop trainee on the CBC Gem series Gangnam Project. But millions of viewers will now get to see him on his biggest project yet, landing a role in the hit Netflix series XO, Kitty.
XO, Kitty is a spin-off of author Jenny Han’s To All the Boys, a film trilogy adapted from her popular young adult novels of the same name. In To All the Boys, Kitty Song Covey (played by Vancouver’s Anna Cathcart) was seen as the witty and sassy little sister who plays the role of a matchmaker for her sister Lara Jean Song Covey. But XO, Kitty sees Kitty taking the lead in her own story as she navigates love, friendship and learning about her Korean roots while as an exchange student in Seoul.
Like its predecessors, XO, Kitty was a hit when it premiered in May 2023, reaching #2 on the English TV list on Netflix in its first week. Its second season officially dropped on January 16.
As for Lee, joining such a popular show as a newcomer came with some pressure.
“I’m first and foremost just really grateful,” Lee said in an interview with RepresentASIAN Project. “I was pretty scared to join this beautiful world that Jenny Han had created that has so many fans.”
Though the moment he landed in Seoul for filming, Lee says that his anxiety went away quickly. He instantly got along with the cast and crew, making the experience “the most fun time.”
“It was so easy. They were so nice,” he said. “I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that all of us are away from home and our established network. So when we’re in Korea, everyone was just so excited to get to know one another.”
On XO, Kitty, Lee plays Jin, who he describes as a “bad boy, toxic alpha male.” Though as the season carries on, Lee notes that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to his character.
Jin is first introduced as a rival to Kitty’s best friend Q (played by Anthony Keyvan) on the school’s track team. Romantic chemistry soon flourishes between the two characters. And audiences learn that Jin’s past behaviour is due to feeling pressure to excel from his own father.
“I was really excited to play Jin through the season because you see his growth through his relationship with Q, and his relationship with the rest of the XO, Kitty crew,” Lee said.
“It was just really fun to play this multifaceted character who, like every other high schooler, is just confused and trying to find who he is for himself.”
That is something Lee says he can relate to. Not too long ago, he was on a completely different career trajectory.
Born and raised in San Diego, the 26-year-old Korean-American grew up dancing, practicing upwards to 40 hours a week. And when he was not performing, he was pursuing academics.
“I was kind of living this double Hannah Montana life. During the weekdays, I was at a science lab. On weekends, I was travelling for dance.”
During his high school years, Lee danced on stage for Hailee Steinfeld and on America’s Got Talent. Though when it was time to go to college, he shifted focus towards his education. He enrolled at Harvard University, where he studied computer science and economics. But when he graduated and found a job in the corporate world, he felt the desire to perform and pursue a more creative path.
“It was just really fun to play this multifaceted character who, like every other high schooler, is just confused and trying to find who he is for himself.”
From there, Lee researched the entertainment industry extensively, taking acting classes and calling whatever contacts he knew in the arts world.
“Every second of the day, I was thinking about acting, dancing and writing,” he said. “I just made the leap one day, and I’m so glad I did because I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Eventually, Lee landed a role on the Broadway musical KPOP in 2022, acting alongside Min and Kevin Woo, former members of the respective K-pop groups Miss A and U-KISS.
Lee further got a taste of K-pop life after being cast as a series regular on the Canadian young adult series Gangnam Project. The show, which follows a biracial Korean-Canadian teen with dreams of becoming a star at a K-pop training academy, has been renewed for a second season that will come out later this year.
Lee, who will reprise his role as trainee Supreme on the show, says his character on Gangnam Project gave him everything he’s looking for as an actor because it combines two of his other passions: singing and dancing. And as an American filming on Canadian soil in Hamilton and Toronto, he owes the welcoming atmosphere of his fellow castmates for making him feel at home in another country. Lee, who is now based in New York City, says he continues to make regular trips to Toronto to visit his friends from Gangnam Project.
“First of all, Gangnam Project will always have a special place in my heart. That’s the first TV show I ever filmed and it brought me to Canada,” he said. “The food is so good, and the people are truly so nice!”
With big projects under his belt, Lee says he now dreams bigger for himself, with hopes to dabble in screenwriting, directing and making projects of his own. He is particularly inspired by the recent successes of shows like Shōgun and Squid Game, and films like Everything Everywhere All At Once for opening doors for Asian actors like him.
“I am just so grateful for the people who have broken down that bamboo ceiling, and it’s 100 per cent the case that I was able to make that leap because I was seeing so much amazing Asian media coming out. I saw that this was truly a possibility for me,” he said.
“I’m just really excited to see the next generation come into the arts space too. It’s just a really exciting time.”
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