Henry Golding Explains Why Returning to Work with Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in Another Simple Favor Felt Different

• Henry Golding is reflecting on how both he and his character Sean have grown since 2018’s A Simple Favor, amid the impending release of Another Simple Favor
• In his Today show interview, he also opened up about what it was like to reunite with costars Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick on the sequel, from Paul Feig
• “I had a lot of fun creating it with Paul,” Golding said of his character now

Henry Golding has come a long way in his career over the past six-plus years — and so has his A Simple Favor character.

The 38-year-old actor stopped by the Today show’s third hour to discuss his role in the comedy-thriller’s impending sequel Another Simple Favor, which sees him reunite with director Paul Feig and costars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively.

Of his character Sean, who is the ex-husband of Lively’s character Emily, Golding told Al Roker, Dylan Dreyer and Craig Melvin, that he was “just the punch bag between” Emily (Lively, 37) and Stephanie (Kendrick, 39) in the first movie. “And he was just the guy that they would kick and he’d take it,”

But in Another Simple Favor, “The guy who came back, he’s had five or six years to mull and have everything soak into him,” Golding continued. “He’s hit the bottle. He’s sort of lost his inhibitions and just decided to give back as much as he takes.”

“I had a lot of fun creating it with Paul,” he added of Feig, 62. “I was like, ‘What do you think if we make [Sean] sort of the opposite of what he was and create something fun with it?’ And that’s what he did. He’s the best collaborator.”

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Asked what it was like reuniting with the cast years later for the new sequel, Golding said, “The funny thing was, that was my second film after Crazy Rich Asians, [which] hadn’t come out at that point. So I was like the green horn on set. I was like, ‘Yes, ma’am. Yes, sir. Whatever you need, sir!’ ”

“And then coming back after working and having a lot more experience and finding a voice as an actor, I was able to give a lot more input and have suggestions,” he continued. “So a lot of the lines that Paul kept in there was stuff that we were testing, or I came up with.”

Said Golding of Kendrick and Lively specifically, “Coming back and filming with the girls again was like putting on a worn-in pair of [sneakers] and going for a casual run,” adding, “There’s no pre-jitters of a new production or meeting new actors or a director — you just go straight back into the relationship you had, and you know all your characters so well.”

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Kendrick stars in the Simple Favor movies as a blogger named Stephanie Smothers, who strikes up a friendship with a woman named Emily (Lively) after meeting her through her son’s school. The first movie centers around Stephanie’s efforts to solve Emily’s mysterious disappearance; Lively’s character is ultimately put in jail for murder.

In Another Simple Favor, Emily is released from jail and invites Stephanie to attend her lavish Italian wedding, to deadly ends.

Speaking with PEOPLE at a special screening of the new film in New York City on Sunday, April 27, Feig said Kendrick and Lively have “magic” chemistry in their second big-screen outing together.

“They’re so great in these movies,” he said of his co-leads. “They just are so magical together. It’s crazy. I mean, we were the third day of shooting, we had this scene with the two of them in a pool kind of drinking martinis and bonding, and we learned a lot about them during that scene. I shoot them both at the same time. My producing partner Laura Fischer and I were at the monitor just going like, ‘It’s crazy how their chemistry just is on fire on screen.’ ”

“It’s really natural,” the director continued. “There’s something about the two of them. They just, they come together and it it’s magic.”

Another Simple Favor is streaming May 1 on Prime Video.