15 hours Ago By matthewgrobar
EXCLUSIVE : Hong Chau ( The Instigators ), Alison Oliver ( Saltburn ), and Shazad Latif ( Magpie ) have landed the three remaining major roles in Academy Award winner Emerald Fennell’s buzzy Wuthering Heights adaptation for Warner Bros , MRC , and LuckyChap. Sources tell us Chau is playing Nelly Dean, the film’s chief narrator, with Oliver as Isabella Linton. Stay tuned for details on Latif’s role.
The actors come to the project after Warner Bros snapping it up in a fierce bidding war, with a commitment to a theatrical run with a big P&A spend. As previously announced, LuckyChap’s Margot Robbie and Euphoria ‘s Jacob Elordi lead the cast. Fennell revealed that Wuthering Heights would be her next project in a post on X (formerly Twitter) over the summer.
Published by Emily Brontë under the pseudonym Ellis Bell a year before her death, the classic novel is set in the Yorkshire moors and revolves around the intense and often destructive relationships between two families: the Earnshaws and the Lintons. The narrative is framed by Mr. Lockwood, a tenant at Thrushcross Grange, who learns about the tumultuous history of Wuthering Heights through Nelly Dean, a longtime servant.
The core of the book is the passionate and tragic love story between Heathcliff, an orphan adopted by Mr. Earnshaw, and Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine.
Fennell will direct from her own script and produce alongside LuckyChap, which previously collaborated with the filmmaker and MRC on her darkly comedic thriller Saltburn for Amazon MGM Studios. Coming off huge success with Barbie , Robbie’s production company has a multiyear first-look feature deal at WB, where her latest film has landed. MRC is the project’s financier.
Consistently building in her career since her breakout turn in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing , Chau is coming off of turns in Apple’s hit Doug Liman caper The Instigators , Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness , Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City , and Netflix’s The Night Agent . Among her other upcoming projects is Amazon MGM’s Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie . Oliver gave a gripping (and underestimated) supporting turn in Fennell’s Saltburn and stars opposite Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in Justin Kurzel’s forthcoming crime thriller The Order .
She’ll also be seen in HBO’s anticipated miniseries Task . Currently, Latif can be seen starring opposite Daisy Ridley in the neo-noir thriller Magpie , based on a story by Ridley. He’s also previously appeared in films like The Commuter , The Man Who Knew Infinity , and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel .
TV credits include Nautilus , Star Trek: Discovery , and Penny Dreadful . Chau is repped by CAA and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Oliver by CAA, as well as Curtis Brown Group in the UK; and Latif by CAA, the UK’s Lou Coulson Associates, Principal Entertainment LA, and Felker Toczek Suddleson..
