Henry Golding jokes that the 'Crazy Rich Asians' cast has to 'lock down' director Jon M. Chu in order to make the sequel

• Henry Golding recently spoke to Insider about the status of the "Crazy Rich Asians" sequel.
• He joked that the cast has to "lock down" director Jon M. Chu in order to make the movie.
• "He is a busy, busy boy," Golding said while promoting his Affirm partnership. "That guy is making waves."

Just days after "Crazy Rich Asians" swept the box office in 2018, Warner Bros. began developing plans to bring the subsequent two books in Kevin Kwans' trilogy, "China Rich Girlfriend" and "Rich People Problems," to the big screen.

Warner Bros. acted swiftly with good reason; audiences seemed to have a ravenous appetite for all things "Crazy Rich Asians." But almost three years have passed since the film's release, and there's still no confirmation about when fans can expect a sequel.

While many have speculated that production is in limbo as a result of in-demand cast members' conflicting schedules, actor Henry Golding, who plays posh Singaporean bachelor Nick Young, begs to differ.

"Everybody's like, 'Oh, you're never going to lock down the actors, they're all doing all the things,'" Golding, 34, told Insider on Wednesday.

"But it's Jon Chu that you got to lock down," he quipped, referring to the 41-year-old "Crazy Rich Asians" director who is signed on for the sequels.

Chu has been working on a variety of other projects, including the musical-drama film "In the Heights," which hit theaters and HBO Max on Friday.

"He's been a busy, busy boy," Golding said of Chu, adding, "That guy is making waves. He has Oprah shouting out his movie."

The British-Malaysian actor is rather busy himself, with upcoming roles in major productions such as Paramount Pictures' "Snake Eyes" and Netflix's "Persuasion." Still, he remains hopeful the "Crazy Rich Asians" cast and crew will reunite soon.

"I think we're all eager to get started on that. So hopefully, hopefully it does get some progress," he told Insider.

While filming hasn't begun yet, Golding tossed around several of his own ideas for the trilogy's on-screen trajectory.

When asked which main character Golding would like to see more of in the next two films, he pointed to Bernard Tai (Jimmy O. Yang), the boisterous playboy that plans Colin Khoo's bachelor party.

"I think he deserves his own little film," Golding said with a laugh.

And, if it were up to the "Monsoon" actor, he would keep the amount of dumpling-making to a minimum.

In a particularly tense "Crazy Rich Asians" scene, members of the Young family gathered to make the traditional dish the way Shang Su Yi (Lisa Lu) taught them.

Golding told Insider that while Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) lectured Rachel (Constance Wu) about tradition and sacrifice at the table, he was struggling to hold on to the "fiddly" dumplings in his hands.

"I was terrible at making dumplings. I'm not going to lie," he said.

"When you're in this hot sweaty room and your hands are sweating, it's not the most appropriate of dumpling-making locations. And that's all prop foods, so it's the actual meat itself but it's sat there for a whole day," he explained.

"So, uh, I think that was probably one of the more challenging spots."

The next two films were reportedly going to be filmed in 2020 but have been delayed

Gemma Chan, who plays Nick's fashion-forward cousin Astrid Leong, told Variety in March 2019 that she'd heard the two sequels would be shot back-to-back in 2020.

The Hollywood Reporter's Rebecca Sun wrote months later that "Crazy Rich Asians" writer Peter Chiarelli and Chu "had delivered the first draft of a 10-page treatment" in July 2019 but were grappling with how much of Kwan's source material to include.

Over a year later, Golding told Digital Spy that Chu was still "trying to crack the script." The actor said adapting Kwan's novels was proving to be a "complicated process," explaining that the team was keenly aware that the sequel has to exceed expectations set by "Crazy Rich Asians."

Kwan echoed Golding's comments in a June 2021 interview with Variety, sharing that the sequel is "deep in development." No release date has been announced, however.

In the midst of Golding's on-screen projects, he's partnered with Affirm, a payment network that's offering a giveaway that will award seven individuals $5,000 to put toward a trip each week of June. One grand prize winner will receive $15,000 at the end of the month.

Prior to appearing in "Crazy Rich Asians," Golding was a travel host for BBC and Discovery Channel Asia, fueling his desire to promote affordable travel with Affirm.

"It was a natural progression really with my previous work being in the travel sector and the travel realm," he told Insider.

Golding continued, "Now comes a time where we're all travel starved, and Affirm came to us and we're like, 'We want to get people back into enjoying life. As tragic as that sounds, we want people to live again and explore and fall in love with countries and people.'"