Golding was born on 5 February 1987[2] in Betong, a town in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. His mother, Margaret Likan, is a native-born Sarawakian of Dayak Iban ancestry,[3] and his father, Clive Golding, is English.[1][4][5][6] Golding is the youngest of three children.[7][8][9]
The family lived in Terengganu for almost five years before moving to Surrey, England, when Golding was eight years old, and he went to The Warwick School, Redhill. Golding holds British citizenship. After working as a hairdresser[9] on Sloane Street in London for a couple of years, Golding moved back to Malaysia at age 21[3][6] to pursue on-camera roles in Kuala Lumpur.[1][7][10]
In March 2017, after a global casting call, it was announced that Golding would star in the film Crazy Rich Asians[14] 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.[15][16]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.[9][17] 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.[18][19] Following the success of Crazy Rich Asians, and, to a lesser extent, A Simple Favor, Golding was cast opposite Emilia Clarke in the romantic comedyLast Christmas, directed by Feig (in their second collaboration).[20] Filming commenced on 26 November 2018 and continued until February 2019,[21] and the film was released on 8 November 2019.[22]
Henry Golding in Singapore for the Milken Institute Asia Summit 2022
Golding met Liv Lo, a Taiwanese television presenter and yoga instructor, on New Year's Day 2011.[30][31][32] They became engaged in 2015 and married in August 2016 in Sarawak.[33] They live in Venice Beach, California, with their two daughters, born in 2021 and 2023.[34][35]
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.[36] 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.[37]
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."[38]
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