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Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has inspired film, stage, and television adaptations over the years, cementing its status as one of the greatest Gothic novels of all time.
First published in 1847, it is the only novel by the English writer and tells the forbidden love story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, set against the bleak backdrop of the Yorkshire moors.
Now, a bold new adaptation by director Emerald Fennell sees Oscar nominees Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi take on the central roles of Cathy and Heathcliff.
The film also stars Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton, Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton, Hong Chau as Nelly Dean and Martin Clunes as Mr Earnshaw.
Complete with a soundtrack by British singer Charli XCX, the cast and creative team hope the film will bring Brontë’s classic novel to a whole new generation of readers.
“If anyone watches this film and then wants to go and read the book, I think we’ll feel like we’ve done our job,” says Fennell, 40.
“I truly believe it’s the greatest book ever written, and I think she is a transcendent genius.”
Fennell, who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for her 2020 film Promising Young Woman, says her first priority when making Wuthering Heights was its emotional resonance.
“The first thing is that everything has an emotional resonance,” she explains.
“Whether it’s the performances, the buildings, the textures, or the food, everything has an emotional reason.
“I was lucky not only to work with an amazing cast, but also an incredible crew who were all working on that same emotional frequency.
“So it’s not just, ‘What period are we in?’ It’s more like, ‘How does this make us feel?’”
Robbie, 35, whose casting as Cathy has been met with scrutiny and scepticism due to her age, says she channelled her inner teenager while portraying the character.
“In a lot of instances with Cathy, I was trying to remember my teenage self, when my hormones were wild and I’d be ecstatic one second and devastated the next,” reflects the Australian actress, who is also a producer on the film.
“When I was younger, before I realised how to protect myself emotionally, I think I felt things so intensely, and one emotion would swing into the next so quickly.
“I feel like Cathy is like that. She’s quite childish, not childlike, but childish in a great way.
“I love her, I adore her and I really loved playing her. There was something in finding those big feelings you don’t yet know how to protect yourself from. In Cathy’s case, those feelings sustain her when she is longing for Heathcliff.”
Elordi, 28, who previously worked with Fennell on the 2023 film Saltburn, says he loved that the screenplay explores Cathy and Heathcliff’s childhoods.
The film opens with Heathcliff and Cathy as children, played by Adolescence star Owen Cooper as a young Heathcliff and Charlotte Mellington as young Cathy.
“I think my favourite thing about the screenplay and Heathcliff as a character and what Emerald does in the film is that you get to see where the cruelty comes from, and you get an opportunity to understand that the lens she puts on Heathcliff isn’t damning,” explains the Australian actor.
“It’s explanatory. It’s almost relieving for him. So I think the screenplay helped me bring all of that into it.”
Elordi, who has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Frankenstein, says Cathy is the only person who can bring out Heathcliff’s softer side.
“You catch him in these steely moments and then Margot will skip across the screen as Cathy, and the way Emerald shoots it, he just comes to life,” he says.
Latif, 37, who plays Edgar Linton, the man Cathy marries over Heathcliff due to his higher social status, says Fennell wanted his version of the character to be a “credible threat” to Heathcliff.
“I remember Emerald saying in those older film versions, he’s a bit of a milquetoast,” says the London-born actor.
“She said ‘I want to make him a credible threat’. It’s not that he’s just rich, it’s that he’s loyal and kind and gentle and a viable option. In the sense that she does love him and it is a real love, but it’s just that the other one’s sort of too strong.
“We wanted to create that love triangle, because if you buy into that – she’s talking about Brief Encounter and The End Of The Affair – if you buy into the triangle properly, and the cuckold character is [the one] you empathise with a little bit, it works. It makes their story better.”
Speaking about working with Fennell, the Spooks actor says: “She eased the pressure. She was not stressed. She was fun. She’s calm, and that makes you then kind of [feel as though] we’re just playing around on set.”
Chau, who plays Cathy’s maid Nelly, says she appreciated Fennell’s experience as an actress while directing.
“She has a way of understanding actors, because she’s acted herself,” says the 46-year-old actress.
“I think she just brought us all together, and we did some cast rehearsals, not rehearsing the script necessarily, but just sitting around, talking, and discussing.”
Chau, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 2022 film The Whale, describes her character’s relationship with Cathy as a “love/hate sister” dynamic.
“She is definitely a person who is probably most like the audience, where she’s the most sensible one of the group and not judgmental, but definitely tries to steer Cathy in the proper direction. And of course, that doesn’t go that way,” she says.
Wuthering Heights will be released in cinemas across the UK on Friday, February 13.
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