‘Wuthering Heights’ Director Defends Casting Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi

Emerald Fennell is defending her vision for the upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

Fennell, who won an Oscar for 2020’s Promising Young Woman and also directed 2023’s Saltburn, is the filmmaker behind the latest retelling of Emily Brontë’s classic romance novel, in theaters Valentine’s Day 2026.

While at the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival on Friday, Sept. 26, Fennell, 39, spoke about her connection to the book, which was first published in 1847: “It’s completely singular. It’s so sexy. It’s so horrible. It’s so devastating,” she said, according to BBC News.

Fennell also addressed online debates criticizing the casting for the lead roles. In the book, Catherine is a teen, but in the film Robbie, 35, takes on the role, and some felt Elordi as Heathcliff, who is described as “dark-skinned” in the book, is an example of whitewashing.

While working with Elordi, 28, on Saltburn, Fennell realized she wanted him for Wuthering Heights because the Euphoria star “looked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that I read,” she said, according to BBC News.

“And it was so awful because I so wanted to scream. Not the professional thing to do, obviously,” she joked. “I had been thinking about making [Wuthering Heights], and it seemed to me he had the thing…. He’s a very surprising actor.”

About Robbie, who also produced Wuthering Heights just like she did Fennell’s other two films, the director said she is “not like anyone I’ve ever met ever, and I think that’s what I felt like with Cathy.” Robbie is “so beautiful and interesting and surprising, and she is the type of person who, like Cathy, could get away with anything,” added Fennell.

“It needed somebody like Margot, who’s a star, not just an incredible actress — which she is — but somebody who has a power, an otherworldly power, a Godlike power, that means people lose their minds,” said Fennell, per BBC News.

Elsewhere in the discussion, Fennell shared that the movie is faithful to the source material while leaning into the provocative nature: “I wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it, which means that it’s an emotional response to something. It’s, like, primal, sexual.”

Wuthering Heights also stars Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell.

In April 2025, casting director Kharmel Cochrane spoke about the Wuthering Heights casting backlash while at Scotland’s Sands Film Festival, according to Deadline.

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“There’s definitely going to be some English Lit fans that are not going to be happy” with the film, Cochrane said at the time, adding, “Just wait till you see it, and then you can decide…. But you really don’t need to be accurate. It’s just a book. That is not based on real life. It’s all art.”

Wuthering Heights is in theaters Feb. 13.