‘Crazy Rich Asians’ actors slam ‘People’ for identity mix-up

Members of the cast of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (from left) Ronny Chieng, Tan Kheng Hua, Fiona Xie and Harry Shum Jr., as well as their director, Jon M. Chu, walk the red carpet at the 25th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Jan. 27, 2019 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. AFP

JAKARTA — Crazy Rich Asians actor Ronny Chieng has publicly called out People for misidentifying his co-stars in last week’s Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards coverage.

The US weekly magazine misidentified two actors as part of the Crazy Rich Asians cast, when they “were not even in the movie”, reported Nylon.

Chieng shared the blunder on social media after he was mistakenly identified as Randall Park in a photo round-up of the red carpet event. His wife, Hannah Pham (who was not in the film), was misidentified as Jae W. Suh.

“@people Jae W Suh is not in this photo. I’m not Randall Park. And that’s Tan Kheng Hua not Michelle Yeoh,” Chieng wrote on his Twitter page.

Another Crazy Rich Asians actor, Remy Hii, had more pointed criticism on the hypocrisy of the slip. Hii expressed his frustration, saying that such blunders almost never occurred with the countless white male actors who looked very similar.

This comes mere days after fashion watchdog Diet Prada pointed out that Vogue had misidentified Tan Kheng Hua and Gemma Chan as Michelle Yeoh and Liv Lo, respectively.

People has since corrected the names of the Crazy Rich Asians stars in the SAG photo.