Henry Golding Calls Critics of His 'Snake Eyes' Casting "Toxic"

Henry Golding is taking on critics of his Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins casting after taking over the role from Ray Park, who played the character in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and its 2013 sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

In a new interview with Inverse, the Snake Eyes star elaborates on why changing the character’s race from his comics counterpart doesn’t change the character’s story. Golding also confirms that Japanese-American comic book writer and artist Larry Hama, who created and wrote most of the G.I. Joe comics, not only approved of his casting but the actor challenges the conditions under which Hama may have had to write the original comics.

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“[Hama] gave us license to co-create with him the backstory that he always wanted to tell,” Golding says. “People are like, ‘That’s not history, he’s white.’ Well, maybe Larry had to do that. Larry had to make it such an obvious story.”

Going further, the actor argues that despite the long history of the “stranger in a strange land” trope placing white characters into non-white cultures and nations, those characters don’t actually always have to be white. The narrative around being the “other” can apply to any race.

“When he was writing comic books, he had to use tropes: White guy learns the way of the ninja,” Golding said. “Now you may be white, Black, whatever, but you will be a fish out of water when you are taken from your culture and put in someone else’s. Those are the intricacies we can use in our stories now. That wasn’t the case back in the day.”

The original G.I. Joe comics cast Snake Eyes as an American military commando with blonde hair and blue eyes. After fighting in Vietnam, he returns home to learn his family has died in a car crash, prompting him to follow Storm Shadow, who he fought alongside in the U.S. military, to Japan where he learns the ninja arts as a member of the Arashikage Clan.

Golding takes the position that there should be more casting open to actors of all races. While in some certain cases it’s important that a character be portrayed as and played by a certain race, more characters can be built to be played by anyone. For that to happen though, the actor says, it has to start “with the directors, in the writer’s room.”

“It starts from conception, creating stories and characters anybody can play. Is it so important that your character has to be a particular race?” he said. ‘If it’s [the character’s] actions that drive the story, then anyone can play it. Anyone should play it. If you’re not serving justice to the page, then what’s the point?”

In addition to defending his own casting, Golding also spoke up on behalf of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu, who was also on the receiving end of some fan backlash after his casting was announced. Golding, a mixed-race actor who says he’s “always the outsider” whether it’s not being “Asian enough for Crazy Rich Asians” or “not white enough for Snake Eyes” called the policing of his and Liu’s identities “toxic.”

“It’s rubbish. We’re playing characters. Not their background,” he said. “It’s bonkers we’re still having those conversations when we’re fighting for something so much bigger. It’s toxic. We should be uplifting each other and rooting for the success of everyone. Not just a few because they’ve been lucky to be brought up in a certain location.”

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