Wuthering Heights adaptation stirs controversy after white actor is chosen to play Heathcliff

A new Wuthering Heights adaptation has been dragged into controversy after a white actor was cast to play the “dark” Heathcliff.

Jacob Elordi, the 27-year-old Australian actor, known for his leading romantic roles in Saltburn and as Elvis Presley in Priscilla, has been cast to play Heathcliff in an adaptation by Emerald Fennell, the filmmaker.

It comes after a 2011 adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel cast a black man in the role for the first time, after the use of actors such as Laurence Olivier and Ralph Fiennes in earlier productions.

There is a growing belief among literary experts that Heathcliff, described in the novel as a “dark-skinned gypsy”, is either black or mixed-race.

Michael Stewart, the director of the Brontë Writing Centre, said: “I feel quite strongly that Emily’s intention was that he was either black or mixed-race and there are lots of clues in the text to suggest that.”

The Brontë expert, who has written a novel interpreting the “missing years of Heathcliff” titled Ill Will, added that it had been “an interesting decision, because we live in a very different time now” compared with previous adaptations.

In Brontë’s 1847 novel, Heathcliff is found abandoned as a baby at the slave port of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw, who adopts him, so his ethnicity is “ambiguous”.

Mr Stewart said: “With Wuthering Heights, you’ve had many years of white actors playing the more ambiguous ethnic character… But things are different now, the way we represent certain people in art and culture comes with a responsibility now that wasn’t there 20 years ago.”

Brontë fans commenting on Mr Elordi’s casting announcement last night agreed, with one post on X garnering more than 119,000 likes and more than four million views stating: “Heathcliff is described as a dark-skinned brown man in the book and a major plot point is that he was subjected to racist abuse by his adopted family. but yeah sure jacob elordi is perfect!”

Mr Elordi, called “Hollywood’s reigning heartthrob of the 2020s” by Rolling Stone, will be starring alongside Barbie’s Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw.

The anticipated film, which the Academy Award-winning Ms Fennell announced in July as her third feature film, follows a collaboration with Ms Robbie as a producer on Saltburn, the director’s erotic psychological thriller and class satire.

Dr Claire O’Callaghan, another Brontë family expert and the editor-in-chief of the official journal of the Brontë Society, suggested that Mr Fennell’s casting “overlooks” the readings of the original text.

‘Interesting choice’

She told The Telegraph: “I guess the danger of this – of casting a white actor – particularly in the cultural climate, is that it overlooks the ambiguity that’s there, and therefore kind of overlooks the readings that Emily Brontë is pointing to that are as rich as anything else.

“So I think it’s interesting that Hollywood has made that choice. I’m assuming that’s because they’re trying to distinguish it from the Andrea Arnold production that went on a few years ago.”

The 2011 Andrea Arnold adaptation of the novel marked the first time that a black man had played the complex anti-hero character.

James Howson was cast after hearing from a job centre that the director had wanted a young actor matching Brontë’s description of Heathcliff as a “dark-skinned gypsy in aspect and a little lascar” – a 19th-century term for sailors from India.

Dr O’Callaghan, the author of Emily Brontë Reappraised, said it had been a “brave decision” for the film to be made in the current cultural climate.

“It’s a really interesting time, I think, particularly post-Me Too… And certainly with the ongoing righteous battles around cultural race context that are happening all over the world, to kind of make this film, it’s a brave decision,” she said.

Speaking about the frustrated fan’s viral comment about Mr Elordi being unsuited to the role given the character being subject to racist abuse, she explained: “If you’re reading the comments around blackness as related to skin colour and his ethnic origins, then certainly it reads as racist abuse.

“And that’s part of the horror of that first part of the book is that Emily Brontë shows the kind of abuse of the outsider, and it’s for that reason that he has been written about, both in fictional terms, as black… and of course in Andrea Arnold’s adaptation.”

The casting was branded as “bizarre” by Brontë fans online, with one writing on X: “Why not Sydney Sweeney as Jane Eyre.”

Another added: “It’s extremely disappointing that in 2024 nothing has changed in Hollywood. But what’s even worse is that it’s such an important aspect of the book.”

Dr O’Callaghan is hopeful that the novel will not be portrayed on-screen as a love story, which she insists is “one of the biggest mistakes” the film and television industry keeps making with Wuthering Heights adaptations.

She said: “The book is far much more than that, it’s really dark… I hope that Hollywood does justice to it.

“A critic once said that it’s not an adaptable text, and that’s why I think Hollywood has really struggled over the years to make something that really reflects the entirety, the fullness, of the original.”