| Henry Golding | |
| Birth Name: | Henry Ewan Golding |
| Birth Place: | Betong, Sarawak, Malaysia |
| Birth Date: | 5 February 1987 |
| Citizenship: | British |
| Years Active: | 2007–present |
| Children: | 2 |
| Signature: | Henry Golding's autograph.jpg |
Henry Ewan Golding (born 5 February 1987) is a British-Malaysian actor. He has starred in the romantic comedies Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Last Christmas (2019), the thriller A Simple Favor (2018), the action comedy The Gentlemen (2019), as well as playing the title character in the action-adventure Snake Eyes (2021), and he appeared in the ensemble cast of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024). In 2025, he had a role in the second season of the Hulu anthology series Nine Perfect Strangers. Before being known for his film work, Golding began his career as a presenter on ESPN, BBC and Discovery Channel Asia.
Henry Ewan Golding was born on 5 February 1987[1] in Betong, a town in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. His mother, Margaret Likan, is a Malaysian of Iban ancestry,[2] and his father, Clive Golding, is English.[3] [4] [5] Golding holds British citizenship.[6] He is the youngest of three children,[7] [8] with a sister and a brother.[9] [10] [11] Margaret and Clive had met in Brunei, where the former was working as an au pair for an expatriate family, while the latter was in the British Army's Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. The couple married three or four months later and moved to the United Kingdom, where they lived in army quarters. They later moved to Sarawak because, during the Falklands War in 1982, Clive was stationed on The Falklands, and Margaret felt lonely, especially when Golding's brother was born.[12]
For almost five years, the family lived in Dungun, a district in the state of Terengganu, where Clive worked as a helicopter engineer. They moved to the countryside of the English county of Surrey when Golding was eight years old, and he went to The Warwick School in the town of Redhill, Reigate and Banstead. At school, Golding was bullied on the playground for coming from Asia. After working as a hairdresser for several years on Sloane Street in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, he moved back to Malaysia at the age of 21, pursuing on-camera roles in Kuala Lumpur.[13]
Golding began working as a television presenter in 2008, presenting a weekly football show for ESPN, The Travel Show for the BBC[14] [15] and Surviving Borneo for Discovery Channel Asia.[16]
In March 2017, after a global casting call, it was announced that Golding would star in the film Crazy Rich Asians[17] alongside Constance Wu. He was first brought to director Jon M. Chu's attention by accountant Lisa-Kim Ling Kuan, and Golding's charm and personality quickly won him his first major acting role.[18] [19] Crazy Rich Asians was released in the United States and Canada on 15 August 2018 by Warner Bros. Pictures and was met with high critical praise, becoming the number one movie in U.S. and Canadian theatres over its opening weekend.[20] A month later, Golding appeared in Paul Feig's thriller A Simple Favor, co-starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, playing Sean, the husband of Lively's character.[21] [22] Following the success of Crazy Rich Asians, and, to a lesser extent, A Simple Favor, Golding was cast opposite Emilia Clarke in the romantic comedy Last Christmas, directed by Feig (in their second collaboration).[23] Filming commenced on 26 November 2018 and continued until February 2019,[24] and the film was released on 8 November 2019.[25] Golding starred alongside Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant, and Michelle Dockery in The Gentlemen, a 2019 crime film directed by Guy Ritchie.[26] Golding went on to star in Monsoon, directed by Hong Khaou, as Kit, a man who travels from London to his birth country of Vietnam to scatter his parents' ashes.[27]
In August 2019, Golding was cast in the title role of Snake Eyes, a spin-off from the G.I. Joe movie franchise, which was released in July 2021.[28] [29] [30] Filming for Snake Eyes began in October 2019 in Vancouver, and wrapped in February 2020 in Japan.[18] [31]
He starred in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare in 2024.
In 2025, he reprised his role as Sean Townsend in Another Simple Favor.[32] He also appears as Hang Tuah, a sage-immortal, in The Old Guard 2.[33]
Golding met Liv Lo, a Taiwanese television presenter and yoga instructor, on New Year's Day 2011.[34] [35] [36] They became engaged in 2015 and married in August 2016 in Sarawak.[37] They live in Venice Beach, California, with their two daughters, born in 2021 and 2023.[38] [39]
Before his marriage, Golding completed his bejalai—the Iban rite of passage into manhood—in the wilderness of Borneo, filming the experience over two months (and carrying the camera equipment himself) for the documentary series Surviving Borneo on Discovery Channel Asia.[40] His journey ended in him receiving a traditional hand-tapped bejalai tattoo by Ernesto Kalum of Borneoheadhunters Tattoo in Kuching, Sarawak. The tattoo on his right thigh is a fig tree that wraps around other trees and takes their form to become the tree itself.[41]
When interviewed by Michele Manelis of The New Zealand Herald, Golding said of his surname, "Golding is really darn Jewish, isn't it? My grandfather during the war was in London and as the story goes, he was possibly adopted by a Jewish family by that name."[42]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Pisau Cukur | Iskandar Tan Sri Murad | Special appearance | |
| 2013 | The Borneo Incident | Henry | ||
| 2018 | Crazy Rich Asians | Nick Young | ||
| A Simple Favor | Sean Townsend | |||
| 2019 | Monsoon | Kit | ||
| Last Christmas | Tom Webster | |||
| The Gentlemen | Dry Eye | |||
| 2021 | Snake Eyes | Snake Eyes | ||
| 2022 | Persuasion | Mr. Elliot | ||
| 2023 | Assassin Club | Morgan Gaines | Also executive producer | |
| Downtown Owl | Vance Druid | |||
| 2024 | The Tiger's Apprentice | Mr. Hu | Voice role | |
| The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare | Freddy Alvarez | |||
| Daniela Forever | Nicolas[43] | |||
| 2025 | Another Simple Favor | Sean Townsend | ||
| The Old Guard 2 | Tuah | |||
| TBA | Close Personal Friends | Post-production |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007–2010 | The 8TV Quickie | Himself | Presenter |
| 2009 | Goda | Hariz | |
| 2010–2012 | Football Crazy | Himself | Presenter |
| 2012 | Welcome to the Railworld Malaysia | Himself | Presenter |
| 2013 | Driving Change with Caltex | Himself | TV Special |
| 2014–present | The Travel Show | Himself | Co-presenter[44] |
| 2015 | Welcome to the Railworld Japan | Himself | Presenter[45] |
| 2017 | Surviving Borneo | Himself | Presenter |
| 2021 | Tsubaki (voice) | Short film: Akakiri: English language dub[46] | |
| 2025 | No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski | Himself | Guest[47] |
| Nine Perfect Strangers | Peter | Main cast (Season 2) |
| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 2nd Shout! Awards | Favorite TV Personality Award | The 8TV Quickie | ||
| Hot Guy Award | Himself | ||||
| 2012 | 3rd Shout! Awards | Favorite TV Personality Award | Welcome to the Railworld Malaysia | ||
| Hot Guy Award | Himself | ||||
| 2013 | 4th Shout! Awards | Hot Guy Award | Himself | ||
| 2018 | Women Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Screen Couple | Crazy Rich Asians | [48] | |
| 2019 | 9th The Asian Awards | Outstanding Achievement in Cinema | [49] | ||
| Teen Choice Awards | Choice Comedy Movie Actor | ||||
| Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Ensemble Cast – Motion Picture |
