{"id":398033,"date":"2026-01-30T03:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398033\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T03:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:41:10","slug":"emerald-fennell-on-casting-jacob-elordi-in-wuthering-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/398033\/","title":{"rendered":"Emerald Fennell on Casting Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEmerald Fennell<\/a>\u2018s highly anticipated adaptation of Wuthering Heights<\/a> made its debut in Hollywood on Wednesday \u2014 and don\u2019t be expecting an exact retelling of Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s classic novel. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe 1847 book follows the intense love affair between Heathcliff (played by Jacob Elordi<\/a>) and Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie<\/a>) in 18th-century England; Fennell\u2019s version,<\/a> which is being stylized with quotation marks as \u201cWuthering Heights,\u201c features some key casting changes, addition of numerous sex scenes and a soundtrack courtesy of Charli xcx. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe thing is that it\u2019s my favorite book in the world,\u201d the filmmaker told The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet. \u201cLike many people who love this book, I\u2019m kind of fanatical about it, so I knew right from the get-go I couldn\u2019t ever hope to make anything that could even encompass the greatness of this book. All I could do was make a movie that made me feel the way the book made me feel, and therefore it just felt right to say it\u2019s Wuthering Heights, and it isn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the most talked-about changes comes with Elordi\u2019s casting<\/a> as Heathcliff, who is described as dark-skinned in the book. Of the decision to cast a white actor in the role, Fennell explained, \u201cI 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. I don\u2019t know, I think I was focusing on the pseudo-masochistic elements of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe great thing about this movie is that it could be made every year and it would still be so moving and so interesting,\u201d she continued. \u201cThere are so many different takes. I think every year we should have a new one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tElordi said himself of the changes to the iconic story, \u201cThere are inverted commas for a reason. This is Emerald\u2019s vision and these are the images that came to her head at 14 years old; somebody else\u2019s interpretation of a great piece of art is what I\u2019m interested in \u2014 new images, fresh images, original thoughts.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMargot Robbie and Emerald Fennell at the premiere. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTommaso Boddi\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film also marks Robbie and Fennell\u2019s first time working together as actress and director, after Robbie produced Fennell\u2019s last two projects, Saltburn and Promising Young Woman. Robbie and her LuckyChap team once again produce this one, as the star noted it was the longtime plan to release the film on Galentine\u2019s Day. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was like if it was me, I\u2019d want to go with all of my girlfriends on a Friday night \u2014 I want to have cocktails and maybe dress up a little bit, and then I\u2019d want to go with my husband or whoever on Valentine\u2019s the next night. So it felt like the perfect weekend for it,\u201d Robbie said, as Elordi echoed, \u201cIt\u2019s a day for love and it\u2019s when everyone in the world is thinking about love; this movie, if it\u2019s about anything, is about love.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tCharli xcx, fresh off her buzzy Sundance debut<\/a>, also walked the carpet, as she explained that Fennell sent her the screenplay \u201cat the end of 2024; I was in London in December, it was like getting dark at 4 p.m., it was freezing cold, I already felt like I was in the zone with it. She wanted me to just do one song and as soon as I read the screenplay I was kind of like, \u2018I want to do a whole album, is that OK?\u2019 And she was like, \u2018Yeah sure, go for it.\u2019 So it was a very easy flowing process.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWuthering Heights hits theaters Feb. 13. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emerald Fennell\u2018s highly anticipated adaptation of Wuthering Heights made its debut in Hollywood on Wednesday \u2014 and don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146759,1823,96,10730,59,1826,1827,56,54,55,1829],"class_list":["post-398033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-charlie-xcx","tag-emerald-fennell","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-gb","tag-jacob-elordi","tag-margot-robbie","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wuthering-heights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}