In the Wuthering Heights novel, Heathcliff is described as a "dark-skinned gipsy". Elsewhere, Brontë also writes that Heathcliff was abandoned as a baby in Liverpool's slave port. This has led many readers to believe that Heathcliff is canonically not white and that he should be portrayed by an actor of colour on screen.

While Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi will lead Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, some fans aren’t exactly convinced by their casting.