For Adoptee Peter Thurnwald, Art Imitates Life in Netflix's XO, Kitty

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for XO, Kitty. Read at your own risk!]

3:10

Watch Now

When Peter Thurnwald first auditioned to be a part of XO, Kitty, it was not for the role of chemistry teacher Alex Finnerty. He initially wanted to play the wealthy It Boy Minho at the Korean Independent School of Seoul, and in the casting process made it as far as a chemistry read with Anna Cathcart. "Of course, just wasn't the vibe," Thurnwald told TV Guide. Now, he can't see anyone apart from Sang Heon Lee playing that character. "It was for the best," the 25-year-old actor said. "But I think that opportunity led to me talking to Jenny [Han] and Sascha [Rothchild] about my adoption, and the role of Alex."

Like Alex — the character he would later be cast as — Thurnwald is an adoptee born in Korea and raised in Australia. In the series, Alex moves to Seoul with the hope of meeting his biological father. And though Thurnwald hasn't taken the exact same measures, he's also been on a journey to find his birth mother. 

"I've done ancestry tests, I've tried to track down a whole bunch of things," Thurnwald said. "There's a few [types of] DNA testing you can do, but you have to be in Korea." And while the actor was in Seoul to film XO, Kitty, he did not feel it was the right time to go all-in on these processes. "To be quite honest, I got a little bit of cold feet when I was there," he said. "I was on a Netflix show, and I was like I don't want to burden myself with too much."

Still, the search for his birth mother has been ongoing ever since Thurnwald was in his late teens. "If I was to go searching again, I want to believe that it's going to be a fun adventure," he said. "And I don't want to do it while I'm shooting. I want it to be its own experience." 

The actor also recognizes how rare it was to portray Alex in the show. "Those opportunities don't come up very often, when you get to play something that is so close to home," Thurnwald said. 

He talked to TV Guide about how Alex's experiences in XO, Kitty mirror his own, how his relationship with searching for his birth mother has changed over the years, and how he hopes to tell more stories about adoptees.

How did the parallels between you and your character come about? Was Alex already written as a character who is ethnically Korean and searching for his birth family? Were there changes made to Alex to make his story more similar to yours?
Peter Thurnwald: [The writers] wanted to have someone in the show who was adopted and looking for their parents. And so I think when I entered the conversation, it started to spark a little bit more light into that side of things. Originally, the role was for an American, so it wasn't meant to be Australian. And again, during the whole audition process, I ended up doing an American accent and then they wanted me to go back to my natural accent. So I think it definitely was a combination.

You obviously share many similarities with Alex. In what ways are you different from him?
Thurnwald: He's much braver than I am, in a sense, that he moves halfway across the world on this adventure, I guess you could say, to discover a part of himself that he thinks is missing from his life. 

What was it like filming in Korea?
Thurnwald: I'd only been there once before when I was eight or nine, and of course when I was adopted. But I really didn't remember that much about it. So kind of rediscovering everything, and exploring the city for what it felt like was the first time was just an incredible experience.

What was it like being in a production that had a predominantly Asian cast?
Thurnwald: I've been really fortunate, for my short career at this time to have worked on some really great projects. And XO, Kitty definitely was I'd say the most ethnically diverse one that I've worked on. It was so great from the beginning, working with Jenny and Sascha, because they were very respectful. They wanted us to bring in our own thing, like, we want you to have your Australian accent, we want you to be you. And I think that's true for a lot of the storylines in the show. They're very truthful and we wanted to, I wouldn't even say tread delicately, to just put some more Asians and different ethnicities in leading roles. And to me, that's super exciting to see. Because as someone growing up, especially in Australia, I didn't have any role models at all that were Asian, especially male. So I think to have so many Koreans and everything in the show is just phenomenal.

What did you mostly see in media when you grew up in the Gold Coast?
Thurnwald: I think most people don't realize that roughly 20% of Australia is of Asian descent. And so there's a really large portion of people that are from Asian countries. Unfortunately, that's just not represented as much as it probably could be in Australian media. We're making really great strides in that area. But growing up, there weren't any real actors for me to look up to. And unfortunately, as soon as they made their way in the Australian industry, they were already shipped off to America. And growing up on the Gold Coast, I was lucky that the school I went to was surrounded by other Koreans actually, which was great. But to be honest, in terms of culturally I didn't really feel out of place growing up on the Gold Coast — it's predominantly white, but it's just a nice place to grow up. And so I personally didn't have any kind of hardships or any problems with being of Korean descent, especially in southeast Queensland.

I also wanted to ask about some of the scenes in the show. In your mind, how long has Alex known that Professor Lee (Michael K. Lee) is his dad?
Thurnwald: I worked on a pretty lengthy backstory, which took elements from both my experience and fantasy. I think it was a better choice to make him know for a really long time, for the last five years, and then always get cold feet, [he] didn't want to do it. But then something back home may have spurred that moment to go and just really put it all on the line — because that's what he's doing. And I think that then bleeds into his relationship and his shock for Jina and finding out his mother as well, because I don't think he expected to get so much information placed in front of him instantaneously. Especially after he's been rejected basically by his father.

Why did he decide to not tell Professor Lee that he knows about their relationship?
Thurnwald: It's a fear of rejection. I totally empathize with that. Because for me, that is my greatest fear of seeing my mother, is that I go there, I say hello, I'm here, and she's like, oh, I don't want you in my life, like I don't want you here. And I think that's a very real thing for a lot of people and it's happened. And maybe that's a reason why I'm very lucky to be surrounded by a lot of South Korean adoptees on the Gold Coast, there's a large community of us. We're quite divided in the sense of, I want to meet my mother or my parents, and some people detest the idea of even thinking about going and seeing their parents. And it's this balance of trying to find some empathy towards my mother but also not stepping on the toes too much.

Tell me more about the community of Korean adoptees you grew up with.
Thurnwald: It was a large group of us. I have a sister who's also adopted Korean, she's three years older than me. We're not biological. But my parents, at the same time as a lot of other parents, adopted a bunch of people from Korea. And so when they came back to the Gold Coast, they thought it'd be a good idea, every few months we would all get together and we'd have a Korean class, and we'd get to know each other. And those people really felt like brothers and sisters to me. I've had a few questions saying like, oh, what if you have a brother? What if you have a sister? Those are my brothers and sisters that I know of. And that community, I still talk to them all the time. And that community has really helped understand my feelings and feel like I'm being heard by someone who understands what I'm going through as well.

That's awesome to hear. How old were you when you first met the people in this group?
Thurnwald: As soon as I came to Australia back from Korea. I've known them my whole life. 

Looking back at the past few years, what are examples of good representation of adoption stories you've seen in media?
Thurnwald: There's been some really firecracker ones, like Lion brings something to the forefront and that movie being Australian really meant a lot to me — of course, quite a different story, but I think it was a beautifully portrayed. And then another movie that was released, called Blue Bayou. I think it was more of a sense of American Koreans who were adopted and living in their 30s and 40s. But in terms of someone a little younger and trying to tackle it, I can't think of something off the top of my head that I've watched and been like, oh, yeah, this was a really good representation.

I don't think there have been many that have been discussed in mainstream media.
Thurnwald: No. That's something for me, I'm really excited to try and tell more stories around that. Because it is something that, it's a niche. But I think like most things, if you go to the extremes of something, I think being adopted really questions your identity and belonging. And so those are universal themes that everyone can tackle. I'm really excited to explore more of that and potentially start making my own shows and stories.

That's really exciting. I'm also curious, what was your reaction when you read the script for the scene where Alex tells Jina (Yunjin Kim) who he is for the first time?
Thurnwald: That was a big one. When I first read it, it was like, the thoughts that I've had about it actually happening in real life, and then seeing it on a page, like I mentioned before, that doesn't happen often. Like art imitates life, and life imitates art. Being able to perform that scene, [was] somewhat cathartic.

I was moved by what your character says. "I grew up happy," "I was adopted by amazing people." Are some of these things what you would say if you were to meet your birth mother? 
Thurnwald: Oh 100 percent. I'd probably say stuff like that word for word if I ever met her. Like, I did, I grew up really happy. I cherished every moment of my childhood. And that's why if I was to go and find her — and I think I am at this point — I wouldn't want to go into the conversation being scared of the rejection. And I do think I'm at that point where I've grown enough as a person to be able to confront that part of myself and not let it destroy me. 

Oh my gosh. It sounds like a lot of growth to be able to say that.
Thurnwald: Oh yeah, there's been a lot of long nights of crying and questioning my entire existence.

And when you say rejection, what does that mean?
Thurnwald: I don't know what trauma I bring in a sense of, I wouldn't want to burden her with a memory of something that maybe she has regretted for her whole life. Sometimes the healthiest thing is distance, and to move on. If she didn't want to be a part of my life, I feel like I'd want to be comfortable with that before I went and saw her because again, I just don't think that it's healthy to reopen a wound that hasn't healed quite yet. But in saying that, if she does want to be a part of my life and wants to reconnect, she can come to Australia, and I can go to Korea, and maybe we can just be pen pals or something like that, I'm really down for that too. 

Have your thoughts about whether to reach out to your birth mother changed a lot over the past years?
Thurnwald: Yeah, because when I was 19, I basically had a super early quarter-life crisis where I had no idea what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. And I was really close to flying over to Korea to look for her, to find some sense of myself. But again, that's like putting a band-aid on it. It's not going to really help. To just be a part of a community, and to be around people you love, that's the healing. It wasn't something that I've always considered, and I think when that box did get opened, that's when it all started to flood. All the emotions started to come out. Because I hadn't actually thought about it until I was in my late adolescence, which probably plays a big part as to why when I was going through my first year of drama school, and even a year before that, I really struggled with it. It was something I couldn't explain, I didn't know what was going on. But now looking back on it, I go, oh, yeah, it's because I had no idea who I was. And I didn't know where I wanted to be and who I wanted to meet. But now, I think I know those things. I hope.

I do want to end with asking about your interest in producing and directing. Where did that interest come from? 
Thurnwald: I've always been very interested in storytelling. I think I'm a storyteller at my core and acting has been my way into that world. Even when I was dabbling in acting the whole time, I was still shooting short films, shooting scenes, writing. And now I've been working on this for about seven years now, let's start throwing some work out there and see what happens. And so I've got a few things that we're getting development funding for now. I've got one series that is very, very exciting, which is about two brothers — one's adopted Korean, one's white, and they kind of meet back in their late 20s and have to get over all that family crap, in order to find their missing sister. It's a dark kind of psychological drama comedy, that's the genre that I just love. And I think it does come from that need to want to share a cathartic experience with other people. And to kind of tell people like, hey, you know, our feelings and our minds are so similar, that even when we watch a story that you might not directly relate to, those themes are universal and you can have cathartic experiences from that.

XO, Kitty is available to stream on Netflix.