Exclusive: Ronny Chieng reveals the real-world inspiration for his latest character: 'I think he's a billionaire disguised as a man-child'

EXCLUSIVE: Ronny Chieng simply loves playing the jerk.

In his own words, the roles tend to "come very naturally" to him.

But this time around, he had to look for some outside inspiration to get the role right, and unfortunately, he found it in the real world.

Chieng appears in Stan's new series The Miniature Wife, based on the 2014 short story of the same name by Manuel Gonzalez.

Starring Matthew McFadyen and Elizabeth Banks, the show centres around a scientist husband (McFadyen) who accidentally shrinks his novelist wife (Banks) and must fight against the clock and a bizarre billionaire to return her to her regular size.

Stream episodes of The Miniature Wife now, only on Stan.

The billionaire in question is Hilton Smith, played by Chieng. He's a new money lab owner funding the miniaturisation project, and as you probably guessed, he's a bit of a jerk.

"I think he's a billionaire disguised as a man-child," Chieng tells nine.com.au.

"I think he gives off this man-child vibe ... but I think through the series he kind of proves himself as quite Machiavellian, I think."

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When it came to studying up for the role, Chieng didn't turn to novels or TV shows or movies; instead, he just turned on the news.

"If you look at the newspaper any day, there are about 10 asshole billionaires you can get inspiration from to play a rich jerk," he explains.

"I would watch videos of all these jerks all day just being rich jerks, and you just channel that into, 'what would this guy think if he was in this situation?'

"This real-life jerk billionaire, if he were here, what would he do? So, unfortunately, a ton of real-world inspirations for this character."

On the surface level, the show appears as a comedy about a husband shrinking his wife, but Chieng says what drew him to the project – aside from the opportunity to work with some of the best in the biz – was the deeper meaning hidden within the script.

"You see that it's a commentary on relationships and it's a commentary on capitalism and society," he says.

"And then when I signed on, the cast was kind of confirmed, and so you get a chance to work with these great people. I mean, I'd do any role to get a chance to see these people on set and learn from them and work alongside them."

And learn from them he did. The show finds a balance between comedy, drama and absurdism without ever feeling like it's trying too hard, and Chieng credits that to the cast and crew.

"Matthew [McFadyen] is a world-class actor who does Shakespeare, who just happens to be able to do comedy very, very, very extremely well," he explains.

"So you put him in there, and then you've got Elizabeth Banks, who is a comedic actress legend, and the tone kind of just finds itself, so we didn't really have to try too hard to find it."

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He explains that there was a real attitude on set of each and every cast member not wanting to let each other down, no matter their status.

While Chieng has always theorised that any great actor is also a great person, he says working on this project confirmed that for him.

"I've never met someone who is a terrible person who is great on screen. I'm sure someone will be able to counter that idea, but these people are all very nice people who were very generous," he says.

"If we were doing a scene and they were off camera and the camera's on me, they would do whatever it took so that I could convincingly get through this scene. They never phoned it in.

"That just confirmed to me that no matter who you are, you could be Matthew Macfadyen, you could be Elizabeth Banks, you could be Zoe Lister-Jones, but when you're on set ... It's not about who's famous, who's not famous, how many Emmys you've won.

"It doesn't matter because you're in the scene and so whatever it takes to help each other."

Nine Entertainment Co (the publisher of this website) owns and operates the streaming service Stan

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