Emerald Fennell, director of the 2026 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, has expressed regret that a scene featuring Margot Robbie's 'extremely hairy armpits' was cut from the final film. Speaking at the Hay festival in Wales, Fennell said the scene was intended to highlight period realism, noting that women in historical adaptations are often shown with clean-shaven underarms despite the lack of razors at the time.
Fennell described Cathy's unshaven armpits as 'so important' to her, adding that she often wonders 'where are the razors that these women are using?' when watching Jane Austen adaptations. 'They're all kind of hairless like eels,' she said. 'It's completely mad.' The scene was shot but did not make the final cut of the film, which stars Robbie alongside Jacob Elordi and was released on Valentine's Day.
The director also discussed other notable scenes, including the infamous 'skin room' where Cathy's husband, Edgar Linton, decorates her bedroom with walls resembling her skin. Fennell joked that the team considered asking Farrow & Ball to create a 'Cathy's skin' colour. They also asked Robbie to send close-up images of the underside of her wrist to reproduce her veins on the walls.
Fennell addressed the much-discussed 'fish scene', in which Cathy sticks her finger into a dead fish's mouth. She explained that the idea came from seeing a fish in aspic and thinking about sexual frustration. 'We had all of the different fish, we had fish with lipstick on, we had real fish, fake fish, in the end that was a real fish. But poor Margot. I mean she had to do that. There were 12 of them.'
Fennell described her adaptation as a 'sister, not a twin' of Emily Brontë's novel, saying she 'couldn't make' the original. She emphasised the importance of embracing embarrassment and earnestness in her work, noting that modern culture is 'so phobic and terrified of being cringe'. She is currently taking time off to make jigsaw puzzles and read Sarah J Maas novels, while secretly developing 'something so depraved, so profoundly evil, that nobody's going to make it'.
