Emerald Fennell is reflecting on a decision that was ultimately omitted from her film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which she spoke about at the Hay Festival in Wales on Friday, May 22nd. During the discussion, she opened up about her interpretation of Emily Brontë's novel, which hit theaters in February 2026. Looking back, she confessed that she wishes she had retained a scene where Cathy (played by Margot Robbie) was shown with visible underarm hair, as it would have been more authentic to the time period.
Fennell often found herself bothered by the hairless skin of women in period dramas, as it applied modern beauty standards to a time when they were not physically attainable. "Where are the razors these women are using?" she recalled asking while watching adaptations of Jane Austen's works. "They're all kind of hairless like eels. I'm like: 'What's going on? It's completely mad.'"
While waxing and hair removal creams existed for many centuries prior to the events of Wuthering Heights, it was only truly accessible to wealthy nobility. According to Gillette UK, English women began removing hair from their face and body with safety razors in the early 1900s, after the First World War—several centuries after Brontë's novel was published in 1847.
For Fennell, it was "so important" to show Cathy's body hair as historically accurate. "Unfortunately, the scene that we see them [in] didn't make it in there," she added.
Fennell's adaptation of Wuthering Heights faced criticism for its lack of historical accuracy—from Cathy's ostentatious attire to the race of Heathcliff (played by Jacob Elordi) to the plot itself, which deviated significantly from Brontë's gothic novel. However, Fennell previously explained the disparities by noting that her rendition was meant to embody the version she "remembered reading" as a 14-year-old, in which she "wanted stuff to happen that never happened."
"So it is Wuthering Heights, but it isn't," Fennell said in an interview with Fandango, published in January. "The thing for me is you can't adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book—I can't say I'm making Wuthering Heights. It's not possible. What I can say is I'm making a version of it."
