U on Sunday’s Hot 19 for 2019: Remy Hii

He’s just finished filming a major role in the next Spider-Man film; he’s still riding the high that was Crazy Rich Asians; but Remy Hii is unsure if he can pull off his next major engagement.

He’s just finished filming a major role in the next Spider-Man film; he’s still riding the high that was Crazy Rich Asians; but Remy Hii is unsure if he can pull off his next major engagement.

REMY HII

31, actor

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“My next big project is going to be a little holiday,” the 31-year-old who grew up in Townsville says with a grin. “I say that now, and then, who knows, something will come up that I’m not going to be able to say no to.”

Hii does indeed deserve the break. He spent three months in London filming a yet-unnamed role in Spider-Man: Far From Home alongside Tom Holland and co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Samuel L Jackson, Marisa Tomei and Michael Keaton; before production moved to Prague for two weeks, then Venice for another two weeks, and then to New York.

“A week-and-a-half after wrapping in New York, I had to start back on Harrow,” he says, referring to season two of the Brisbane-shot ABC TV drama, in which Hii plays Simon Van Reyk, a forensic pathology assistant to Dr Daniel Harrow (Ioan Gruffudd). Harrow finished production in December and Spider-Man opens in July.

In the interim, Hii is awaiting details on the announced sequel to Crazy Rich Asians (titled China Rich Girlfriend) in which his character, Alistair Cheng, will be reprised and is expected to feature in a stronger storyline.

“I’m trying not to think too hard about the future and what can be,” says Hii, who finished his schooling in Brisbane and performed with the Queensland Theatre Company before being accepted into NIDA in 2009.

“I don’t have anything firmed up after this (Harrow). It’s wait and see about Crazy Rich Asians 2; and wait to see when Spider-Man comes out, whether there will be another sequel and what that would mean for me.” Born to a Chinese-Malaysian father and an English mother from Manchester, Hii recalls that the comic book web-slinger Spider-Man was a strong part of his childhood in north Queensland.

“So being a part of the franchise now is incredible; coincidentally Spider-Man was my favourite superhero when I was quite young,” he says. “I don’t know, there was something about Spider-Man that thrilled me. Whether it was because of his youthfulness; or that thing of being an outsider. Peter (Parker) at school is very much an outsider and that’s something I’ve always identified with.

“I really like how in the first Spider-Man film they played a lot on what it is like to struggle in school; and to try and find your place; and that awkwardness of being a teen. Plus it was funny. And a lot of that humour, I think, they’ve really latched on to and retained in the second film. It was, yeah man, just really, really exciting.”

And with rumours that China Rich Girlfriend will be shot in Shanghai, he may have to combine that longed-for “little holiday” with work.

“Shanghai. Can’t say I’m averse to that,” he grins.

“Sounds pretty fun. I’d be very excited to hear what they’ve got cooking up.”