She has her co-star’s back.
Margot Robbie has defended Jacob Elordi after his casting as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s upcoming “Wuthering Heights” film adaptation drew major backlash from critics.
“I get it,” the “Barbie” star, 35, acknowledged during an interview with British Vogue published Thursday. “There’s nothing else to go off at this point until people see the movie.”
“I saw him play Heathcliff, and he is Heathcliff,” she continued. “I’d say, just wait. Trust me, you’ll be happy.”
Both Robbie and Elordi, 28, faced backlash when “Wuthering Heights” was first announced in July 2024.
While some fans criticized the “I, Tonya” actress for being too old to play Catherine, who is described as “almost 17” with “brown ringlets” at the outset of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, others chided Elordi due to his race.
Although the color of Heathcliff’s skin is left ambiguous in the original book, he is described at one point as a “dark-skinned gipsy” who wishes he had “light hair and a fair skin.”
Robbie, however, insisted that the “Euphoria” star is the right fit for the role and gushed about Elordi’s version of her onscreen lover.
“It’s a character that has this lineage of other great actors who’ve played him, from Laurence Olivier to Richard Burton and Ralph Fiennes to Tom Hardy,” she noted.
“To be a part of that is special,” Robbie added. “He’s incredible, and I believe in him so much. I honestly think he’s our generation’s Daniel Day-Lewis.”
Casting director Kharmel Cochrane, who worked with Fennell on “Saltburn” before joining “Wuthering Heights,” said something similar over the summer while discussing the upcoming movie at the Sands International Film Festival of St. Andrews.
“There’s definitely going to be some English lit fans that are not going to be happy,” she acknowledged in August, per Entertainment Weekly.
“Just wait until you see it, and then you can decide whether you want to shoot me or not,” Cochrane joked. “But you really don’t need to be accurate. It’s just a book. That is not based on real life. It’s all art.”
Elsewhere during her new interview, the “Suicide Squad” star opened up about being three months postpartum when they began shooting “Wuthering Heights.”
Robbie and her husband, Tom Ackerley, welcomed their first child together in October 2024.
“So I was in a very different headspace,” she shared. “I didn’t do my usual routine. It was more haphazard. And I remember saying to Emerald, ‘What if I’m not prepared enough?’”
“She kept saying, ‘I don’t want you to prepare. I just need you to be in the moment,’” she added. “Which was a lovely way of relieving my anxiety. It was about being in my body as opposed to my head.”
As for the movie itself, Robbie assured fans that it may not be as “very, very raunchy” as some might expect.
“I think people will be surprised,” she explained. “Not to say there aren’t sexual elements and that it’s not provocative – it definitely is provocative – but it’s more romantic than provocative.”
“This is a big epic romance,” Robbie concluded.
“Wuthering Heights” is scheduled to hit theaters Feb. 14, 2026.
