Margot Robbie has defended the casting of fellow Australian actor Jacob Elordi in a steamy new version of Wuthering Heights, describing her co-star as “our generation’s Daniel Day-Lewis”.

The pair were announced last year as the stars of British director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic 1847 novel, with Robbie playing the “free-spirited, beautiful and spiteful” Catherine and Elordi channelling handsome anti-hero Heathcliff.

Some fans were quick to criticise the casting, especially because of the difference in the stars’ ages – Robbie is 35 and Elordi 28.

Others were angry that Elordi would be playing a character whom Bronte’s story described as “dark-skinned”.

Speaking to Vanity Fair this week, Barbie star Robbie said she understood the backlash, explaining that people had “nothing else to go off at this point” until they saw the movie.

But she added: “I saw him play Heathcliff. And he is Heathcliff. I’d say, just wait. Trust me, you’ll be happy.”

A story of passion and revenge, Wuthering Heights tells the story of the obsessive, destructive love between Cathy and Heathcliff.

There have been at least 14 adaptations of the novel, including the 1939 film starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, and Robert Fuest’s 1970 movie with Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall.

Robbie said the character of Heathcliff has the lineage of other “great actors” who have played him – including Olivier, Richard Burton, Ralph Fiennes and Tom Hardy.

“To be a part of that is special,” she said. “He’s incredible and I believe in him so much. I honestly think he’s our generation’s Daniel Day-Lewis.”

Fennell, who won an Oscar for Promising Young Woman in 2021, previously directed Elordi in the 2023 erotic thriller Saltburn. She has said that it was seeing him in costume and with sideburns as Felix Catton that inspired her to adapt Wuthering Heights.

Fennell told British Vogue she thought: “Oh my God, it’s the Heathcliff on the cover of the book that I’ve had since I was a teenager.”

The director has also defended the casting of Robbie as Catherine, who is more than a decade older in the new adaptation than she was in the original novel.

Fennell describes the character as “wilful, mean, a recreational sadist, a provocateur”.

“She [Cathy] engages in cruelty in a way that is disturbing and fascinating. It was about finding someone who you would forgive in spite of yourself, someone who literally everyone in the world would understand why you love her.”

The first trailer for Wuthering Heights was released in September, attracting further controversy with what some considered its “overt eroticism”.

Elordi hasn’t responded to the casting backlash directly, but praised the new adaption in an earlier interview with Deadline.

“It’s an incredible romance, it’s a true epic, it’s visually beautiful,” he said. “The script is beautiful, the costumes are incredible.”