Jacob Elordi Broke a Chair with His Bare Hands in Intense Wuthering Heights Scene
Margot Robbie’s character’s reaction in the scene “is my genuine reaction,” the actress says of the explosive moment with her costar
Jacob Elordi “actually broke” a chair while filming a Wuthering Heights scene with Margot Robbie
“I looked around and all of these professionals, women and men, were agape,” director Emerald Fennell recalled of the moment on set
Fennell also said that “there was so much screaming every day” on the set of Wuthering Heights, in theaters Feb. 13
No furniture was safe on the set of Wuthering Heights.
In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, star Margot Robbie revealed that during one particularly explosive scene of the film — which stars Robbie, 35, and Jacob Elordi as childhood friends-turned-doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff — Elordi, 28, “actually broke” a chair.
The admission arose after director Emerald Fennell — who has previously promised that her adaptation of the classic 18th-century English novel is “primal [and] sexual” — revealed that she “was led by my own feelings” while making the film.
“On set, we were all trying to find that thing that made us get goosebumps. One of the earliest scenes we shot was where Heathcliff breaks the chair to build Cathy a fire,” said Fennell, 40. And while the moment is meant to inspire lust in Catherine, it also inspired awe from folks on set, the director recalled.
Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in ‘Wuthering Heights’. Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
“I looked around and all of these professionals, women and men, were agape,” she told the L.A. Times. “Everyone felt the same way as Cathy. That’s what I was looking for every day.”
“He actually broke the chair,” Robbie said of the moment, adding that her character’s reaction in the scene “is my genuine reaction.”
Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel sees Heathcliff and Catherine become friends as children and gradually fall in love over the years, though they cannot be together due to their differing social statuses. Fennell’s adaptation prioritizes explosiveness and, as Robbie phrased it to the L.A. Times, “going too far.”
“What I like about working with Emerald is: I like going too far,” the Barbie actress told the outlet. “My instinct is to go really hard and then have someone tell me to pull it back. She rarely tells me to pull it back.”
Emerald Fennell, Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie attend a photocall for Wuthering Heights at St James’s Place in London. Picture date: Wednesday February 4, 2026
“She wants the maximalist version and I relish that,” Robbie continued. “She would say, ‘Now you’re in a sensible period film.’ And then she’d say ‘Now do it like you’re Ursula the sea witch.’”
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Elsewhere in the interview, Fennell recalled that “there was so much screaming every day” on set. “I always want people to have permission to go too far, to do something that’s in bad taste, that’s not subtle,” the director said. “I’m really interested in pushing until that squeaking point where you’re like, ‘OK, that’s too far.’ It takes a lot of bravery to do that.”
As for the steamy scenes in Wuthering Heights — which also stars Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell — Robbie previously told PEOPLE that preparing for them was “no different to all the other scenes that we do.”
“The movie kind of demands a lot of all of us,” the actress told PEOPLE on the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere on Wednesday, Jan. 28. “My character essentially cries in every single scene, but no, it was a joy. I loved playing a character who kind of swings from one wild emotion to the other in an instant.”
Wuthering Heights is in theaters Feb. 13.
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