Henry Golding in Hong Kong! The Crazy Rich Asians actor on his favourite destinations and hotels, travelling as a celebrity, the acting craft, his family … and talking panda poop as a TV host?
- Henry Golding recently stopped by Hong Kong following stays in Rome and Madrid – and we met the former BBC travel show host while he was a guest at St. Regis Hong Kong
- He opens up about his connection to his birthplace of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo, working with directors like Guy Ritchie, and travelling the world with wife Liv Lo and daughter Lyla
Born in Malaysia to a British father and Malaysian mother, Henry Golding is the consummate traveller.
While he is now based in Los Angeles, he spends a lot of time on the road – most recently in Rome and Madrid, where he shot two different films. He’s often accompanied by his wife Liv Lo and two-year-old daughter Lyla in tow. (Lo and Golding are currently expecting a second child.)
On a recent trip to Hong Kong, he was a guest at the St. Regis Hong Kong where, as part of the hotel’s Packing in Style programme, he sat down for a chat with St. Regis’ chief sales and marketing officer Bart Buiring to talk all things travel and more.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation.
On his acting aspirations
“Crazy Rich Asians was actually my first job as an actor, but I had dreams and aspirations when I was really young. I found an affinity with watching movies and thinking beyond what was on the screen. I felt it was something that I would love to do and I knew it would be at the right time and the right place, and that happened to be Crazy Rich Asians.”
On the “miracle” that is movie making
“The industry is put on a pedestal. The mystery of making a movie and telling a story has always been part of people’s imagination, but when you’re actually on set and have to do a take 20 times, you realise how many different talents are involved, from camera operators and producers and props.
“It really does take a village to make a movie. Any movie that gets made is a miracle because for it to be made, so many yesses have to happen [yet] just a no to end a project. It’s also never about the take you see on the screen. There could be 12 other takes and three of those are the best you’ve done in your life, but they end up being on the cutting room floor.”
On learning his lines
“In the beginning of my career, I would Google how to remember my lines. For me, it’s understanding the words that you’re saying. That means reading the script even 20 times back to back, knowing every single moment and attaching memories to what you’re saying so that they come easily to you. It’s about repetition and hard work and sitting there and rereading and focusing.
“Sometimes you have two weeks before production where you go through the script and do roundtables, but sometimes a director like Guy Ritchie makes up the words on the day. So you have to learn these new parts of dialogue every day and you don’t know what’s going to happen as he creates it on set as you’re shooting.”