ET was with Constance Wu, Henry Golding and Awkwafina backstage at CinemaCon to talk representation and sweating out noodles.
"Watch your eyes, everybody!" Constance Wu cautioned as co-star Henry Golding popped a bottle of champagne backstage at CinemaCon. As the cork rocketed off, Awkwafina exclaimed, "It hit the mic! We're obviously not crazy or rich."
ET was exclusively with the Crazy Rich Asians cast in Las Vegas on Tuesday for their "first celebration" of the movie -- and the timing couldn't have been better, considering their first trailer debuted on Monday to much excitement.
The movie, out Aug. 17, stars Wu as Rachel, an America-born Chinese professor who travels with her boyfriend, Nick (Golding), to Singapore to meet his family, only to discover that he is secretly, well, crazy rich. The production is the first major Hollywood production with a majority Asian cast in 25 years, since The Joy Luck Club in 1993.
"It's insane to think that it's taken this long," Golding told ET's Kevin Frazier, as Awkwafina explained, "If you think about 25 years, that's an entire adult life that grew up without seeing representation in his or her life. This movie answers that question, and it's about time, I think?"
Wu is as beloved for her work on Fresh Off the Boat as how outspoken she is about representation, and she hopes that Crazy Rich Asians -- which casts Asian actors from the U.S., southeast Asia and the U.K., among others -- will be the first of many more movies that tell many different stories.
"In Hollywood, a lot of times they want diversity which is just, like, lip service," Wu said. "They just want to see somebody who's Asian, but they don't really pay attention to the cultural differences. Our culture is more than skin deep."
Meanwhile, this movie marks Golding's first film -- he was actually a member of the media who once worked the Harry Potter press junkets -- and admits he was "crapping himself" on set. Expect the breakout star of the summer to be Awkwafina, though, who not only plays the crazy bestie here, but also appears alongside the likes of Sandra Bullock and Rihanna in Ocean's 8. "It's lit, I can say that," she teases of that cast's now-infamous text chain. "Don't steal my phone! Don't hack me!"
The cast was able to do a bit of globetrotting of their own while shooting, much of which took place on beautiful islands and in beautiful mansions in Malaysia. And though they were costumed in ball gowns and three-piece suits, it wasn't as glamorous as it looks, between the heat, humidity and lack of A/C.
"We lost a lot of weight from the sweat," Awkwafina deadpanned. "We sweated out all the noodles!"
Crazy Rich Asians is adapted from Kevin Kwan's 2013 novel of the same name, which led to two sequels: China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems. Whether the film version becomes a trilogy is ultimately up to you, the cast says. "It depends on America, dude," Awkwafina said, while Gemma Chan chimed in, "We don't want to jinx it!"
RELATED CONTENT:
