Celebrity

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Henry Golding

He almost passed on his Crazy Rich Asians role.

CAP D'ANTIBES, FRANCE - MAY 23: Liv Lo and Henry Golding attend the amfAR Cannes Gala 2019 at Hotel ...
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It’s only been three years since Snake Eyes star Henry Golding made his acting debut in the 2018 box office hit Crazy Rich Asians. Since then, he’s gone on to roles ranging from the suave husband in A Simple Favor to the maniacal Dry Eye in The Gentleman. But what is Golding like offscreen?

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1. He was a hairdresser

Golding is a bit of a renaissance man. He dropped out of school when he was 16 to become a hairdresser and ended up working in London.

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2. He was a travel host

After becoming a hairstylist, Golding quit his job and moved to Kuala Lumpur to become a travel host for the BBC and the Discovery Channel Asia. In 2017, he hosted the program Surviving Borneo, which saw him embark on a Bejalai journey before his wedding.

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3. He got married in 2016

He married Liv Lo Golding in 2016. The two met at a club in Singapore on New Year’s Day in 2011, and he told Wired his wife made the first move: “She stopped me and said to me, ‘Why haven’t you said hello to me yet? I’m leaving in the next couple days, you will never ever see me again. What are you gonna do about it?’”

4. They had a baby in 2021

In April 2021, Golding announced that he and his wife had welcomed their first child, Lyla, to the world. Chatting with The Ellen Show, he called the birth of his daughter “definitely the joy at the end of the tunnel” and said she was a “sweetheart.”

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5. He almost passed on auditioning for Crazy Rich Asians

In 2018, Golding made his acting debut as Nick Young in Crazy Rich Asians. The role came to him almost by magic. He was suggested for it by an accountant, who passed his information to director Jon M. Chu, who later convinced an uncertain Golding to audition.

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6. He’s a mental health advocate

In July, Golding posted a video on Instagram encouraging viewers to check in on their friends during the pandemic. “One thing that we take for granted is our mental state,” he said. “Our emotional sort of fragility. It’s one of the things that we overlook all of the time.”

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7. He’s extremely athletic

In addition to performing almost all of his own stunts on the Snake Eyes set, Golding told The L.A. Times that he took up surfing and mountain biking during the pandemic. Although, he admitted, “I’m absolutely super average at both of those.”

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8. He’s a “sexual healer”

Speaking with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Golding revealed that he received the superlative of ‘sexual healer’ in his high school yearbook because of how often he would walk around school singing the Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.”

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