Jacob Elordi Planned To “Take A Break” From Acting Before ‘Wuthering Heights’ Role​on April 19, 2025 at 5:56 pm

Although Jacob Elordi was ready to enjoy a hiatus from Hollywood, Emerald Fennell pulled him back in.

The Wuthering Heights star recently explained how the Saltburn writer-director convinced him to take on the role of romantic antihero Heathcliff in her upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel.

“I was really lucky,” he told IndieWire. “I was going to take a break for a while, and then Emerald just very simply texted me, and you can’t run from that text.”

Elordi also raved that his co-star Margot Robbie, who plays his beloved Catherine Earnshaw, is “incredible in the film, she’s a livewire. I’m so, so excited for people to see it. She’s a beautiful actor and she gave so, so much.”

Last September, Deadline exclusively announced that Elordi and Robbie were tapped to star in Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, from MRC and LuckyChap. Warner Bros Motion Pictures Group has since won distribution rights in a bidding war, setting the romance for a Feb. 13, 2026 premiere.

Fennell—who serves as writer, director and producer on the adaptation, which has been filming in the UK—previously faced backlash for casting a white actor as Heathcliff, who is described in the book as a “dark-skinned gipsy.”

Wuthering Heights is considered by many to be one of the great pieces of literature when it was published in 1847. The original story follows two families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and the turbulent relationship they have with the Earnshaws’ foster son, Heathcliff.