Emerald Fennell Addresses Jacob Elordi Wuthering Heights Casting Backlash

Emerald Fennell has spoken for the first time about the controversy that arose when it was first announced that Jacob Elordi will be playing Heathcliff in her new movie version of Wuthering Heights.

Last year, the British filmmaker was accused of “whitewashing” a character many think of as a person of colour when it was first revealed the Euphoria actor would be taking on the iconic role.

Asked about this during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter at her film’s premiere, Fennell said: “The thing is, everyone who loves this book has such a personal connection to it, and so, you can only ever kind of make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it.

“I don’t know, I think I was sort of focussing on the kind of sado-masochistic elements of it.”

The Oscar winner continued: “That’s the great thing about this movie is that it could be made every year and it would still be so moving and so interesting.”

Last year, Fennell opened up about the decision to cast Elordi as Heathcliff, claiming that while they were working together on Saltburn, she noticed he “looked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first [copy of Wuthering Heights] that I read”.

“It was so awful because I so wanted to scream,” she recalled. “Not the professional thing to do, obviously. I had been thinking about making [a film version of Wuthering Heights], and it seemed to me he had the thing… he’s a very surprising actor.”

Elsewhere in her Hollywood Reporter interview, Fennell was also asked about the mysterious quotation marks that appear around the title of her new film in promotional materials, and whether that suggests her adaptation of Wuthering Heights will deviate from the source material.

“The thing is, it’s my favourite book in the world, you know?” she responded. “And like many people who love this book, I am kind of fanatical about it.

“So, I knew right from the get-go, I couldn’t ever hope to make anything that could even encompass the greatness of this book. All I could do was… I don’t know… make a movie that made me feel the way the book made me feel. And so, therefore, it just felt right to say it’s Wuthering Heights… and it isn’t! You know?”

Wuthering Heights arrives in cinemas on Friday 13 February.