Emerald Fennell says filming ‘Wuthering Heights’ was “harrowing”
Emerald Fennell has opened up about the process of directing the film adaptation of the classic novel, Wuthering Heights.
On September 26th, the Satlburn director spoke about her experience working on the huge undertaking while visiting Emily Brontë’s hometown of Haworth, West Yorkshire. She was taking part in the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival.
She shared, “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.”
Making the iconic novel come to life was a dream of hers from an early age. At the age of 14, her “profound” connection “cracked” her open. She added that the 1847 story is “completely singular. It’s so sexy. It’s so horrible. It’s so devastating.”
The director admitted that working on a project so close to her heart has been intense: “I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book, and of course now I’m even madder than I was before because I’ve thought of little else now for two years.”
She does not take the responsibility lightly. In fact, she deemed it “a terror as well, of course, because it’s a huge responsibility. Because I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious. It’s very personal material for everyone. It’s very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private, I think.”
It has also felt like “an act of extreme masochism to try and make a film of something that means this much to you”, she explained. “I’ve actually found it quite harrowing, in a really interesting way.”
She finished, “It’s been a kind of masochistic exercise working on it because I love it so much, and it can’t love me back, and I have to live with that. So it’s been troubling, but I think in a really useful way.”
Far Out gave Fennell’s last work, Saltburn, four stars, writing, “It’s a frenetic carnival of cinematic vision and dramatic joy, and even if there’s not much beneath the surface, it’s simply a joy to participate in the party.”
In the movie, Margot Robbie stars as the lead character of Catherine Earnshaw, opposite Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. Charli XCX will be contributing original songs towards the film. Wuthering Heights is set to hit cinemas on February 14th, 2026.
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