“Wuthering Heights ”Director Says She Regrets Cutting Margot Robbie’s ‘Extremely Hairy Armpits’ from the Film

NEED TO KNOW

• Emerald Fennell said she regrets cutting a Wuthering Heights scene showing Margot Robbie’s character with unshaven armpits

• The director said she’d been bothered by how period dramas often showed women as smooth-skinned, despite razors not being available at the time

• “They’re all kind of hairless like eels,” Fennell recalled of women in other period dramas, set around the time of Wuthering Heights

Emerald Fennell is looking back on a Wuthering Heights style decision that was cut from the film.

On Friday, May 22, the director spoke at Hay Festival in Wales and opened up about her adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel, which was released in theaters in February 2026.

In hindsight, she admitted, Fennell wished she’d kept a scene with Cathy (played by Margot Robbie) in which her unshaven armpits were visible, because it would have been more accurate to the time period.

Fennell said she was often bothered by the hairless skin of women in period dramas, because it applied modern beauty standards to a time when they weren’t physically attainable.

“Where are the razors that these women are using?” she recalled asking while watching Jane Austen film adaptations. “They’re all kind of hairless like eels. I’m like: ‘What’s going on? It’s completely mad.’”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Waxing and hair removal creams existed for many centuries prior to the events of Wuthering Heights, though it was only truly accessible to wealthy nobility.

Per 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 that reason, it was “so important” to Fennell to show Cathy’s body hair as historically accurate, the director said. “Unfortunately, the scene that we see them [in] didn’t make it in there,” she added.

Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights drew some criticism for its lack of historical accuracy — from Cathy’s ostentatious attire, to the race of Heathcliff (played by Jacob Elordi), to the plot of the film itself, which deviated significantly from Brontë’s gothic novel.

However, Fennell previously explained the disparities by noting 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 of her adaptation 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.”

Wuthering Heights is now streaming on HBO Max.

Read the original article on People