Wuthering slights: why are film-makers afraid of casting Yorkshire actors as Cathy Earnshaw?

"As well as the apparent whitewashing of Heathcliff by casting Jacob Elordi in the part, there's the fact 35-year-old Margot Robbie is playing a woman 20 years her junior. Plus, of course, they're both Australian, not British and certainly not from Yorkshire. Fennell has offered a defence of her casting choices as a personal fantasy but amid all the scoff and chatter surrounding the film and its myriad deviations from the book, the erasure of regional authenticity risks going under-discussed."

"Wuthering Heights, one of the world's most revered novels, is inseparable from the capricious landscape of the Yorkshire moors. Yet screen adaptations have consistently neglected the local identity of its central character. Across every major adaptation, from Merle Oberon in 1939 to Kaya Scodelario in 2011, not one Cathy has been portrayed by a Yorkshirewoman, let alone an actor from Bradford, the cultural heartland of the novel's setting and the city in which it was written."

"The film's sole Bradford-born actor, Jessica Knappett, plays Mrs Burton, a servant role. Casting choices such as Fennell's preserve a system that undervalues northern women Casting Wuthering Heights without regard for regional specificity is not a neutral creative decision. While Robbie may be so beautiful, and interesting and surprising, according to Fennell, such star-driven considerations constitute a frustrating dismissal of the environment that fabricated Cathy's temperament. Cathy is not merely situated within a landscape, she is symbiotically shaped by it."

A new film version casts Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Cathy, both Australian and not from Yorkshire, with Robbie aged 35 playing a woman described as 20 years younger. The casting continues a long pattern in screen adaptations that neglects Cathy's local identity; across major adaptations not one Cathy has been portrayed by a Yorkshirewoman or an actor from Bradford. The film's sole Bradford-born actor, Jessica Knappett, appears in a servant role. These casting choices erase regional authenticity, sideline northern talent, and ignore how the Yorkshire moors symbiotically shape Cathy's temperament.

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