'XO, Kitty' star Anthony Keyvan on life after 'Love, Victor'
"Xo, Kitty" star Anthony Keyvan, who broke out as a love interest in Hulu’s "Love, Victor," has become a beacon of representation for queer Iranian and Filipino Americans.
Anthony Keyvan never set out to become a beacon of representation for queer Iranian and Filipino Americans. But with his recent roles as a romantic interest of the title gay protagonist in Hulu’s “Love, Victor” and as an all-American jock at an international Korean school in Netflix’s “XO, Kitty,” Keyvan, 24, is part of the next generation of actors looking to make television representation more expansive.
“I feel I’ve won the lottery in a lot of way,” Keyvan, who has been acting for the better part of the last two decades, said of viewers’ responses to his diverse characters. “It’s a responsibility I will take time and time again, because I know that it has impacted people in such a positive way.”
“XO, Kitty,” which returns to Netflix on Thursday for its sophomore season, is a spinoff of writer Jenny Han’s acclaimed “To All the Boys” film trilogy. The series follows the youngest Covey sister, teen matchmaker Kitty (Anna Cathcart), as she attends the fictional Korean International School of Seoul in an attempt to reconnect with her late mother’s roots. Keyvan plays Quincy “Q” Shabazian, an openly gay star track athlete and fellow American exchange student who becomes Kitty’s best friend and closest confidant.
Much like the original “To All the Boys” films, “XO, Kitty” features a young Asian American woman as the romantic lead. But in expanding her fictional universe, Han wanted to further diversify the spinoff by introducing characters of different ethnicities and sexualities. By the end of the first season, Kitty, who finds herself having feelings for her ex-boyfriend and two of their classmates, realizes she is bisexual. The second installment finds Kitty navigating her increasingly complicated love life at school — largely with the help of Q — while she tracks down her estranged extended family in South Korea.
Whereas other coming-of-age shows starring LGBTQ characters may focus on the inherent anxiety of coming out, Keyvan said he believes “XO, Kitty,” with its emphasis on treating queerness as a nonissue, “gives hope to young queer people or questioning people that their life doesn’t have to look a certain way.”
Rating: 5