{"id":179388,"date":"2025-09-30T05:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T05:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/179388\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T05:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T05:32:10","slug":"emerald-fennell-on-wuthering-heights-criticism-for-casting-robbie-elordi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/179388\/","title":{"rendered":"Emerald Fennell On ‘Wuthering Heights’ Criticism For Casting Robbie & Elordi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEmerald Fennell<\/a> is teasing her film adaptation of Wuthering Heights<\/a>, which garnered significant attention following the release of the trailer<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker addressed why she cast Margot Robbie<\/a> and Jacob Elordi<\/a> in the lead roles and why she decided to adapt the classic book.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it, which means that it\u2019s an emotional response to something. It\u2019s, like, primal, sexual,\u201d she said, according to the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn directing the adaptation, Fennell said she \u201cwanted to make something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been obsessed. I\u2019ve been driven mad by this book,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd of course now I\u2019m even madder than I was before because I\u2019ve thought of little else now for two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trailer received a lot of attention due to the heavily erotic scenes, saying, \u201cThere\u2019s an enormous amount of sadomasochism in this book. There\u2019s a reason people were deeply shocked by it [when it was published].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been a kind of masochistic exercise working on it because I love it so much, and it can\u2019t love me back, and I have to live with that. So it\u2019s been troubling, but I think in a really useful way,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\n\tFennell acknowledged it was a \u201chuge responsibility\u201d adapting the book, adding, \u201cI know that if somebody else made it, I\u2019d be furious. It\u2019s very personal material for everyone. It\u2019s very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director also received pushback for casting the Barbie star and Saltburn star in the leading roles, as they don\u2019t reflect the characters described in the book. Catherine Earnshaw was a teenager in the book, while Heathcliff is described by the author as being \u201cdark-skinned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFennell said she asked Elordi to play the role on the set of Saltburn as he \u201clooked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that I read.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd it was so awful because I so wanted to scream. Not the professional thing to do, obviously,\u201d she said. \u201cI had been thinking about making [Wuthering Heights], and it seemed to me he had the thing \u2026 he\u2019s a very surprising actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn casting Robbie, Fennell said she is \u201cnot like anyone I\u2019ve ever met \u2014 ever \u2014 and I think that\u2019s what I felt like with Cathy,\u201d adding that she is \u201cso beautiful and interesting and surprising, and she is the type of person who, like Cathy, could get away with anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think honestly she could commit a killing spree and nobody would mind. And that is who Cathy is to me. Cathy is somebody who just pushes to see how far she can go,\u201d Fennell continued. \u201cSo it needed somebody like Margot, who\u2019s a star, not just an incredible actress \u2014 which she is \u2014 but somebody who has a power, an otherworldly power, a Godlike power, that means people lose their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWuthering Heights opens in theaters on February 14, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emerald Fennell is teasing her film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which garnered significant attention following the release of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,65749,75,23483,17831,337,65750],"class_list":{"0":"post-179388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-emerald-fennell","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-jacob-elordi","13":"tag-margot-robbie","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-wuthering-heights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}