The Golding boy
HE’S THE HOTTEST THING IN CINEMA RIGHT NOW– AND, AS larusHka IvanZadeH DISCOVERS, EVEN LOCKDOWN ISN’T HOLDING HENRY GOLDING BACK
ON SCREEN he’s the perfect guy – the ideal husband (Crazy Rich Asians) or the dream date (Last Christmas) – and off screen, actor Henry Golding’s life appears equally charmed. Where Covid saw most films aborted, Golding had wrapped on Snake Eyes – a huge upcoming action movie starring himself as the titular hero and GI Joe team member – just days before Japan went into lockdown. This allowed him and his wife, Liv Lo, to travel safely back home to LA, from where he’s calling me today.
‘We moved to California a year ago but home is wherever my wife is,’ says the peripatetic actor, who also regularly follows his Italian-Taiwanese, TV presenter/yoga instructor spouse around the world. ‘This year is the longest period of time where I haven’t had to go to the airport and fly anywhere.’ Born in Malaysia and raised in the UK, Golding has been in
‘I was a hairdresser. Some of my mentors were strong, gay men’
transit his whole life. At 21, he went to Kuala Lumpur to pursue dreams of stardom, first as a TV presenter. He quickly became a regular host on BBC’s The Travel Show. Then, with zero acting experience, he scored a breakthrough cinema debut as Nick in Crazy Rich Asians, which went on to become the highest-grossing romcom of the 2010s. He’s been nomadic ever since.
His current film, Monsoon, took the 33-year-old actor to Vietnam. It’s an exquisitely contemplative little indie drama about a gay British-Vietnamese man who returns to his birth country for the first time in over 30 years to scatter his parents’ ashes. His first film since Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, Monsoon marks a tonal shift of gear for Golding, who calls it his most ‘personal’ role yet.
‘Growing up within a mixed heritage family I never felt at home anywhere that was labelled as my “home”,’ he says. ‘In the UK I wasn’t British enough, in Asia I wasn’t Asian enough.’
Born to a Malaysian mother and an English military father, Golding was ‘about nine’ when his family relocated from
Malaysia to Surrey.
‘Until then I didn’t grasp the idea of race but at that stage there weren’t many Asians in rural areas of Britain and casual, uneducated racism was rife,’ he says. ‘I was called everything but the actual race I am just to get a reaction.’
Golding’s own accent is what one would call wellspoken, British public school, despite him not having gone to one. Coupled with his effortless charm and dashing looks, it’s no wonder he’s one of the top names in the running as the new 007. So how does he feel being cast as a Vietnamese man?
‘It’s interesting, Americans can play English, Germans can play Americans but for Asians it’s like, “No! If you’re not from Thailand you can’t play a Thai guy. If you’re not from China you can’t play a Chinese guy!”’ he says. ‘They don’t understand that in the Philippines there is a huge Chinese population, and Malaysia is Chinese, Indian and Malay – so many different communities. “Asian” is not specific in that sense.’
However, these are sensitive times when it comes to identity politics and such hot button cultural issues – if not deftly handled – can make or break careers. That’s something Golding seems aware of given he ties himself in knots trying to explain how he is also being respectful of playing a ‘proudly gay’ man in Monsoon, despite being straight himself.
‘I was a hairdresser from the age of 16 to 21 [Golding dropped out of school and worked at the Richard Ward salon in Sloane Square] and some of my mentors were strong, gay men,’ he says. ‘I never batted an eyelid at their sexuality because it was so commonplace and normal.’
Those hairdressing skills came in handy over these last odd months.
‘I did cut my wife’s hair,’ he says. ‘It was a drastic haircut just because she was being driven wild. But as soon as nail bars and hairdressers opened again she got herself a proper haircut. I am rusty, to say the least.’
He’s unlikely to need a fallback career any time soon.
Monsoon is in cinemas from Friday