Emerald Fennell defends casting Jacob Elordi in ‘Wuthering Heights’ amid backlash
Emerald Fennell has defended her decision to cast Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in her upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation.
The upcoming movie, which also stars Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and will arrive alongside a soundtrack from Charli XCX, is set for a cinematic release on February 11th, 2026.
Notably, Fennell has chosen to officially stylise the film as “Wuthering Heights” and use quotation marks in order to illustrate the creative license she has taken to differentiate her movie from Emily Brontë’s original novel.
One notable example of the differences between Fennell’s film and Brontë’s novel is the casting of Elordi as Heathcliff, who is described as a “dark-skinned gypsy in aspect” in the book.
Now, the English director has explained her decision to cast Elordi, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I think the thing is everyone who loves this book has such a personal connection to it, and so you can only ever make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it.”
Fennell added of her thinking behind the casting of the Australian actor, “I don’t know, I think I was focusing on the pseudo-masochistic elements of it.”
She also said of the original source material being open to interpretation, “The great thing about this movie is that it could be made every year and it would still be so moving and so interesting.”
Fennell concluded, “There are so many different takes. I think every year we should have a new one.”
Elordi has also backed up the director’s view, stating on the subject, “There are inverted commas for a reason. This is Emerald’s vision and these are the images that came to her head at 14 years old; somebody else’s interpretation of a great piece of art is what I’m interested in — new images, fresh images, original thoughts.”
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