Nine Perfect Strangers star Henry Golding on his Aussie co-stars and the Crazy Rich Asians sequel

Henry Golding gives an update on the long awaited Crazy Rich Asians sequel and reveals which of his Aussie co-stars in Nine Perfect Strangers should win an Emmy.

Henry Golding thinks one of his Australian co-stars in the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers is a shoo-in for awards glory this year – but it might not be the one you first think of.

Playing a controversial wellness guru, Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman is the central figure of the anthology drama adapted from Aussie author Liane Moriarty’s best-selling book of the same name and the only cast member returning from its first season.

But Golding reckons that series newcomer Murray Bartlett will add another Emmy to the one he scored for The White Lotus thanks to his role as a once-celebrated and now cancelled kids puppeteer who visits the Alpine retreat to work through his anger and resentment issues.

“He is so, so, so, so, so good,” enthuses Golding over Zoom call from his home in London. “Emmy-award-winning, if I might. I’ll be the first to say it, all right? Put it in the papers.”

And as if Bartlett’s towering talent wasn’t enough, Golding says it’s also a joy to see “one of the nicest human beings on the planet” finally getting his dues thanks his eye-catching role as White Lotus Hawaii’s sly manager Armand, which turbocharged his career after years of toiling away in relative obscurity.

“He deserves it,” says Golding. “He also has lived a life of storytelling. He’s been an actor for God knows how many years and now finally people … are realising ‘who the hell’s this guy? Why’s he so funny?’ He’s a joy to work with.”

Henry Golding as a billionaire’s son in Nine Perfect Strangers.

But if Bartlett was the surprise package of the shoot, Kidman was a big part of why Golding signed on the Nine Perfect Strangers. The Malaysian-born, England-raised actor, who made his Hollywood debut in the hit 2018 comedy Crazy Rich Asians and has also starred in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, GI Joe spin-off Snake Eyes, and comedies A Simple Favor and Last Christmas, had been a big fan of the first season when it was released in 2021 as one of the few shows made during the Covid pandemic.

He’d particularly admired Kidman’s character Masha, a self-proclaimed Russian healer with a penchant for using psychoactive drugs on her patients, and was impressed by the lengths the Aussie actor would go to during production, including sometimes keeping the accent while not shooting and going for cold dips in the frigid rivers around the Austrian city of Salzburg.

Henry Golding thinks Aussie Murray Bartlett should win an Emmy for his role in season two of Nine Perfect Strangers.

“I don’t know how many hours of the day she has to herself but she seems to be everywhere and just wow – what a force,” he says. “Especially being in the industry over 40 years or something.

“She’s so playful within her scenes. Every take is so different and it keeps you on your toes as an actor because you don’t quite know how she’s going to put across a line so it makes the scene alive. She’s a really playful, lively actress and she’s so giving.

“You would imagine somebody of that calibre and experience to be so stern with, like, ‘this is how we want the scene, this is how we do it’, but she’s not. She’s completely opposite. She’s just a theatre kid. She’s just one of those really exuberant people who love their craft.”

After shooting in Byron Bay – standing in for California – for the first season, the second season relocated to Germany, Austria and the surrounding mountains as Kidman’s Masha prepares to unleash her controversial methods on another group of troubled, but eager, patients.

Nicole Kidman, left, and Henry Golding, at the season two premiere of Nine Perfect Strangers in Los Angeles this month. Picture: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Golding plays Peter Sharp, a man living the shadow of his billionaire businessman father (played by the ever-reliable Mark Strong) and trying to downplay his vast wealth and privilege and trying to forge his own identity and path.

“He wants to be his own man and part of the issue is that he can’t be,” says Golding. “He’s had a very broken childhood … so his search is really a search not only for the remnants of the relationship between father and son, but also the remnants of who he is as a human. That was fun. So he’s scatty. He’s sensitive. He is unsure of a situation, so he overcompensates in very funny ways.”

As for the appeal of the show more broadly, Golding says that even if the broken and often entitled characters are extreme, they are relatable.

“It’s just the idea of getting together this corral of really f---ed up people,” he says with a laugh. “There’s no easy way of saying it. They are so messed up and aren’t we all in a situation where we bury our secrets, we bury our traumas?”

Golding is also back on screen in the belated sequel to the 2018 hit A Simple Favor, which dropped on Prime Video earlier this month. He says that in addition to the joy of reuniting with director Paul Feig and his co-stars Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, he had the additional satisfaction of coming back as “such a better actor”.

Henry Golding returns as Sean in Another Simple Favor.

“That was my second film ever,” he says. “I had grown so much that the girls were like, ‘who the hell is this guy? What have you done with Henry because this is not the same guy?’

“I had found my voice over the years. In the beginning when you’re a greenhorn, you’re kind of like, ‘yes, sir, yes, ma’am, whatever you want’. You’re the yes guy. Now it’s like, ‘hey, what about this?’ or ‘Oh, I don’t think so – what about this?’ You know, the whole pretentiousness of an actor.”

He’s also relishing the chance to revisit his very first film, confirming that the long-awaited and much-rumoured TV sequel to Crazy Rich Asians, which made $370 million at the box office, is “definitely happening”.

“I’ve had meetings with writers,” he says. “We’re gearing up for, I’m hoping, next year. So that’s all I can reveal, but they are feverishly getting together the actors and the story to expand this world, which is about time if you ask me. So stay tuned – this one’s going to be fun.”

Nine Perfect Strangers and Another Simple Favor are now streaming on Prime Video.

Originally published as Nine Perfect Strangers star Henry Golding on his Aussie co-stars and the Crazy Rich Asians sequel