Margot Robbie and Jacqueline Durran Break Down The Costumes In Wuthering Heights

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mal and I'm joined today by the fabulous Radhika Seth. Can you introduce yourself please Radhika Seth? Yes, hello. I'm Radhika Seth. I'm British Foes, film and culture editor, and it's so nice to be back on the run-through. I know. I feel like we usually only get the pleasure of Radhika's company when she's reporting live from the sort of weird press lounge at the Cannes Film Festival. Always with terrible Wi-Fi. Sorry, Claire. But today we had such a wonderful time talking to two very impressive women, Margot Robbie and Jacqueline Duran. They both worked on a film that everyone at the Vogue office is very excited about, Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell.

0:49Margot plays Catherine Earnshaw, the star-crossed lover of Heathcliff, played by Jacob Elordi. And Jacqueline designed the spectacular costumes. I have to say, I've been a longtime Jacqueline fangirl. I think she is just so spectacular at what she does, from Little Women to Atonement to Anna Karenina and Barbie. I mean, she really can sort of do it all. She's just a genius. She's just such a genius. Rad, you wrote the amazing profile of Margot for British Vogue's, was it the January cover? January cover, that's right. I have not seen the film yet. I'm seeing it next week at a screening. But you saw the movie.

1:33You interviewed Margot. You also spoke to Jacqueline. Give us an elevator line review of the movie and what people should be excited about. I feel like this film has been really promoted as an event film, and that is what it is. Like, it's camp. It's funny. It looks stunning. The sets are incredible. and it's like, I think I've heard it described maybe by Emerald as I think she wanted to make something like a film that you wanted to eat and this is really a film I wanted to eat and I've seen it once but I'll be eating it many more times. I think I'm going to see it again at least twice. I was thinking, it's been a few years since they announced this and I feel like even back then I was like ugh, this is going to be great.

2:15Here in London, the BFI did like a season quite recently called Too Much and it was about like incredible melodramas from the 50s. And I feel like this is a film I can see programmed in something like that in the future. I feel like it should be like studied for its over-the-top like gloriousness. Yeah. And it's really exciting to see something like that in a cinema with people. It's just like what you want from the cinema now, I think. Yes, everyone just has to wait. The movie is out February 13th, conveniently timed to spooky Friday the 13th and romantic Valentine's Day. Without further ado, here is Margot Robbie and Jacqueline Duran.

2:56Hi, Margot. How are you? How are you? Good. Nice to see you. How are you? I didn't know you were going to be doing this. Yeah. Nice to catch up again. Can't wait for people to actually see this film, like everyone to have seen it. Me too. It's last night. We had the world premiere, and so it feels like it's now finally out in the world. It feels like this is, and getting like everyone's reactions last night. It was, it's, yeah, this is very. What were the reactions like last night? What were the weirdest reactions and the best reactions? I was surprised at how many dudes wanted to like really talk.

3:34And like some were friends of mine sort of thing. Not in like, oh, they're having like an existential crisis. Am I here for my Edgar to my wife or girlfriend or whatever? But like a lot of people were like, I didn't realize this was going to be so like aesthetically cinematic. I didn't realize it was going to be funny. Didn't realize it was going to be as strange as it is. Those kinds of things. I think people are hearing the message, um, you know, that through the marketing that it's like big sweeping, romantic epic, which it is. And I think we want to be leading with that, but people are now seeing it and being like, oh, it's actually funny as well.

4:12And it's kind of like bizarre, unexpected. Yeah, there's so many layers to the film that you're just not going to really, yeah, you're not going to realize, I think, until you see it. So it's been fun. It was really fun hearing people's reactions last night and also just hearing like the in-the-moment reactions in the cinema, like hearing everyone gasp when people would clap. There was clapping throughout the film. Really? Any unexpected clapping or laughing at places you didn't think? The biggest first clap happened when Heathcliff puts her fingers to his mouth and she's like, no, don't. And he's like, he puts his fingers to, like, smells her fingers and then puts them in his mouth.

4:54All the women in the audience clap. I feel like they were saying, like, take note, men. Margot, I realized that we jumped right in. I didn't welcome you to the pod again because the last time— We actually started. This isn't preamble chit chat. We're in. Oh, we're in. We're fully in. We're in. We're in, and we are so excited. And Choma and I were just laughing that I feel like it was a lifetime ago that you were doing the Barbie press tour because it just also feels so tonally different than this tour. It does, but at the same time, I haven't, you know, since then, felt this, like, buzzy feeling out in the world, the way it felt right before Barbie hit the cinemas.

5:38There was this energy around where people just really, really wanted the film. Yes. In like a wholesome way. And I'm feeling that again. And yeah, it's been really nice. Emerald and I were just on the phone before. And we're both like, isn't it weird that this feeling right now feels so wholesome? Like considering our movie does have steamy sort of provocative elements. It's true. It's where we're having, you know, we've chosen Wuthering Heights as our first book club pick for our first Vogue Book Club. And we're doing, I'm interviewing Emerald next weekend. We're doing a screening and it'll be on the 8th.

6:12And the number of people who have emailed me saying, I want to come, I want to bring my teenage daughter. We want to come together. Families want to come together. I'm like, this is not a family film, people. But it's very charming. I mean, I know it's funny because it is an R-rated film, but there's no nudity other than Jacob not having a shirt on. So I classify that as nudity. So there's no nudity, there's no swearing, and there's no violence. So in a way, it feels so thrilling and it feels at times like I shouldn't, as an audience member, be privy to this moment. Like this feels so intimate that I shouldn't be allowed to be witnessing it.

6:52And it's so thrilling to be in that position, I think, as an audience member of like, oh my God, I'm really seeing behind the curtain of this relationship right now. And like, I don't know if I should be seeing all this. It's those kind of gestures that get the biggest reaction in our film. And it's not really like, it's not the typical shock value like, whoa, that you might see in another film. I want to hear about last night's dress because I have some logistical questions, but I also, it was so spectacular. It was this Schiaparelli couture fresh off the runway. It had a velvet pedal train, a sort of classic, you know, mid-century couture type train.

7:35On the runway, though, the train was blue. Last night it was red. I want to know how that magic happened. Did Andrew Mukamel, who I know your stylist, how did he conjure that? It's like in Wizard of Oz where they change the colors of things. Andrew, who, by the way, is not only a brilliant stylist, but he's a history major. So he really, you know, when we do these press tours, you know, he really, really does his research. And he, you know, I was wearing Elizabeth Taylor's necklace, which is a lot of amazing romantic history linked into it. So he likes to kind of go deep and find meaning and be able to really tell a story in the outfits, which I love and appreciate so much.

8:18But to go back to the Schiaparelli, so it was a custom Schiaparelli couture gown. And the intention was like, how do you make a dress look like Wuthering Heights? And so knowing that in the film, we have this red lacquered floor in one of our biggest sets, we knew that they were going to have either a red carpet, but we were hoping they would recreate the red lacquered floor as our red carpet at the premiere. So Andrew wanted it to feel like it was kind of soaking up the floor and almost absorbing it into the dress which is the effect that it has and in the schiaparelli you know that incredible show um that we all just saw a couple days ago have this like in a couple of the outfits um you know a couple of the designs this ombre sort of effect with layered not sure it's almost like a crepey sort of material but layered in strips to create this ombre effect of one color kind of melting into the next um so it kind of yeah right at the sort of meal fight um yes yeah yeah and it turns into the black velvet and then this lace bodice.

9:20My God, I wanted to ask you also about the Dallara snakeskin corset, because I'm just obsessed with it. It's so wonderful. But also, I remember you telling me when we spoke before that you'll keep an eye on the couture shows as they're happening in case there's things that you and Andrew can kind of pick out. Is there anything that you've seen from that as well that you might have your eye on? I mean, it's kind of hard now because we have a lot of things locked in and now I'm seeing shows and we're like, oh my gosh, like the Schiaparelli show with the bird shoes. Did you guys see that? Oh, the bird shoes were insane.

9:51We're all talking about that. I was just like, wait, do we need to redo our outfits? There's so many exciting things coming through. And then the Chanel show happened. I mean, it's kind of hard to know what we can incorporate at this late moment, but knowing Andrew, he'll move mountains to make a fashion moment happen. So I'm here for all of it. But it's so fun doing this kind of press tour where you get to keep telling a story, even at this point in the movie's release. I loved when Andrew referenced, there's a great line from the film that is, I'd rather be loved by a snake. I'd rather be hugged by a snake.

10:33Hugged by a snake, yes. Yes, sorry, to go back to the Dallara outfit. Exactly. That was his idea behind the Dallara snakeskin he's like well now a snake is hugging you um it's also just Dallara and Wuthering Heights it's just it's like a match made in heaven we've got we've got some more Dallara coming up don't worry we've got we we're almost spoiled for choice of the Dallara option I think maybe the first trailer had come out for our trailer for Wuthering to come out and she had a show and one of the models had a horse bit like a bridle in her mouth oh my god which is in our movie as well in a quite a um exciting scene so we were just like oh it's all meant to be i wanted to ask you a bit about kind of the producing side of it and of course like putting this amazing team together with jacqueline duran who we'll speak to in a little bit and also suzy davis who's done this amazing work for the sets and obviously charlie xcx doing the music and you know can you talk to me and talk to both of us about putting that amazing team together with Emerald.

11:32I remember you telling me that she knew from very early on that she wanted Charlie to do the music, right? Charlie was really the first name she said when talking about the music. Emerald's very intentional. What she did and what she did with the budget she had to, just the producer and me can't help but be in awe because I was like, this isn't possible that she's done all this for what we have. The sets she created were unbelievable. And not only a astounding to look at, but functional too. I mean, we have rain machines every five minutes in this movie. We need to create a drainage systems in studios and we need to create sets where real livestock could be in there, horses and pigs and all sorts of things.

12:19She had, like I mentioned before, that brutalist sort of architecture at Wuthering Heights, you know, all these elements encroaching into the sets. And then you go to Thrush Cross Grange and And it's like, yeah, it's like stepping into Oz and Technicolor. Suddenly the palette changes completely. You know, the space, there's just so much more space. It's big cavernous spaces, lacquered floors, real gardens. You know, the lamp around it was incredible. Thousands of real roses. When you stepped onto set, the smell almost hit you like a wall of roses. It was just incredible. and storytelling throughout and all these, you know, original references from Emerald coming through and whether you get to really get to see it as an audience member a lot, unfortunately, you won't get to see, but the vibe and the feeling is there.

13:09It's so visually specific and has such a strong point of view, which as do both of Emerald's other two films, which I wonder when you decided, Margot, that you were going to play Kathy and did who what came first Jacob as Heathcliff or you as Kathy Jacob as Heathcliff Jacob was the very first casting piece he emerald said he she saw him in saltburn with um he had like sideburns and and she it suddenly struck her that he looked like the illustration of Heathcliff on the cover of the book that she read the Wuthering Heights that she had when she was 14 oh my god I was on you know on board as a producer and and thinking about the film through that lens but I think a piece of me was I kept putting myself into like the scenes in my head how would I be how would I do that and so when it came time to you know kind of figure out the Kathy casting through caution to the wind and because I'm talking about this it's kind of like it's kind of like telling your longtime friend that you are actually in love with them and like seeing if they love you back it's like it's like doing it's like the equivalent of like doing like the yawn and putting your arm around them in the center of the thing it's like I'm making the move and if I don't want to make it weird if she's not into this like I hope back to our usual producer director dynamic and nothing be weird because I said that I would play Kathy but no pressure and so yeah So thank God she felt the same.

14:46And we lived happily ever after. So, yeah. I can't believe that you read the script before the book. Was that? Yeah, which was brilliant. And when she told us, when Emerald told us while we were making Salt Burn, I have a memory of us being on set on Salt Burn and her kind of sidling up, being like, I have my next thing in my head. And I was like, great, what is it? And she's like, it's going to be Wuthering Heights. And I was like, great. And knowing that I hadn't read the book, because it wasn't on our curriculum in school for some reason, I thought, okay, either I go and read the book like a hundred times right now, or I do not read it at all and do not watch anything and let her version be my very first thing.

15:24So that's what I decided to do. I wanted whatever she wanted to do with it to be my first experience with it and not be clouded by any sort of preconceptions or biases that I'd have from reading the book. Did you watch any of the other adaptations before? I think I'd maybe seen the Laurence Olivier one a long time ago, but not in a way that I could remember it. So even I'm questioning whether I even did see it because I'm like, surely I would have remembered. But there's something about him standing there and his kind of camp look that made me think, oh, no, that feels familiar, but I don't think I'd even seen them.

16:01And then once I had that, you know, her vision and her script cemented in my mind, I went and read the book a bunch of times. I know in your Vogue Australia cover story, you're saying that you told Jacob that it took you like a while to find Kathy and that kind of freaked you out. And I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about that before you played her. I know I yeah it took me a couple weeks before I feel like I really found her and uh sometimes that happens to me at least and I think it happens after sometimes where you feel like you have the character or you don't and sometimes it's a couple days in and then you're like oh there it is um in this instance it was a couple weeks in for me I was starting to really panic I kept turning to Emerald Duff every take and being like I don't think I have her and she's like you're doing her It's perfect.

16:48And I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. But Emerald said to me, I don't want you to think about what you've done in previous scenes. I don't want you to think about the scenes that are coming. Kathy's only ever in the room that she's in. She's only here right now. She does not think of consequences. And she does not think of things that have happened before. She's so extremely present. I just need you to be present. And so I just, I tried to do that. And then at some point, this thing happens where you're suddenly, you're like, oh, I have it. I'm in. And weirdly, the movie starts feeling more real than your real life.

17:25And then you're like, okay, I'm really lost in it now. Great. I love that you guys really inserted yourselves into the characters. I loved reading about that Jacob got Kathy many roses for Valentine's Day. He's getting all this credit. I also gave him roses on Valentine's Day. Thank you very much. And we both kind of forgot. And then afterwards, I said to him the next day, I was like, I did get you roses on Valentine's Day. I remember doing it. So I was like, and I gave you a book of poetry, actually. It's got a picture of a little frog on the front. And hello, I waved while drowning or something like that.

18:03I gave him a lamp, like this gas lamp. It looked very like kind of cool and old timey. I got him that. And what else did I give him? I gave him a movie poster when we wrapped of a movie we both love, You Got Served. He really bonded over the fact that we both love that movie so much. So I got him that as a movie poster. What did he give you? Well, he did the roses on Valentine's. He wrote like, it was all from Heathcliff. He wrote like a note from Heathcliff with like a line from the film that's a line from the book. He made like this little tombstone thing out of clay. Yeah. And then he would get snacks, Australian snacks.

18:46He got his dad to bring over all my favorite Aussie snacks when his dad came over from back home. So, yeah, clever boy. He quickly realized that the way to my heart is through food. I want to know if, you know, I would just said that we're starting our book club with Wuthering Heights. And there's been such heated debate in our office about whether or not this is a love story. There are a lot of people reading this for the first time. They think, these people are not nice to each other. It's so violent. It feels so punishing. Is this a love story or not? And I wonder, did you ever waver on that?

19:23It always was a love story. It is a love story to me. I feel like maybe what we associate with love at the moment is just like all the nice, warm, fuzzy feelings. Love has always been the most interesting emotion to me because it can lead to other things. Like if left neglected or unrequited or abused or whatever, it can turn into all these dark things. Love can lead to jealousy. Love can lead to, you know, anger, revenge, all these toxic things that you see play out in the book and in the film too. I mean, it's not possible to reach that level if you didn't love so extremely deeply to begin with.

20:01So I find love to be a much more interesting emotion than just straightforward hate, you know. Hate can only lead to a few emotions. Love can lead to the whole gamut, really. So to me, it is a love story, a very tragic one.

20:19We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're diving into costumes with the fabulous Jacqueline Duran.

20:51intelligence Jeffrey Hinton, or some of my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at The New Yorker. So join us every week on The New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

21:11And we're back. Jacqueline, it's so lovely to meet you. I'm such a longtime fan. I want to hear what the first thing you did when you heard that you were going to be working on this film was. I think the more interesting thing is going for an interview and taking all these things that I thought would be Wuthering Heights related and sitting in Emerald's office and then just realizing that everything that I thought was wrong. Say more. And that it was actually just a disaster. And anyway, it obviously turned around and I understood what she meant. But it goes back to what Margot was saying about how that it's so completely Emerald's vision and that you just need to come at it with a clear mind and just be ready to take on that vision because it's a separate thing.

22:02And she does have it all worked out. When it came to the fittings as well, I'd love to hear how that went for both of you together, Margot and Jacqueline. And in terms of, Margot, how did you react to the clothes when you first saw them? And are there any kind of amazing stories that you can tell us about those early kind of moments of seeing the clothes? I mean, we did so many fittings. We did hours and hours and hours. And I loved all of them. It was squeal-inducing. We would put things on and have to go parade them out through the workshop because we were all so giddy about it. And, I mean, Jacqueline was playing with so many different kinds of fabrics and textures and really so much storytelling through every, I mean, every department did it, but particularly I think the costumes do a lot of storytelling.

22:54We had a very specific palette that we were working within. Kathy pretty much only wears red, black and white, pretty much. There's a few exceptions throughout the film. She also has over 50 costumes and each costume takes, I don't know, Jacqueline, how many hundreds of hours? It was just so long. And the thing is that it was a kind of spiral. So at the beginning we kind of had time. And it took us a bit of time to work out the Wuthering Heights looks, I think. I kind of forget that. But the beginning was hard to kind of find the tone of what we were doing and get that kind of balance between, you know, how it looks and how costumey it is and what Emerald's vision is.

23:35A bit like you trying to find Cathy's character, trying to kind of pin this vision to some place. You know, it's not a date, it's not a sight of anywhere. It's just, it's that vision and it's kind of almost, I felt it was like trying to catch a bubble. Oh, I love that image. So anyway, that was a bit like the beginning for us because it is a fevered state. It is a dream. And just pinning that down in the kind of way of a melodrama is just a very, very fine line to walk. But I just, Margot, I think I have to go back to when you first arrived in London. And I said, I'm really sorry, but there's just so many costume changes.

24:17And then all around the office was the whole costume breakdown. And I know because you know how these things are, that you immediately realized how much that was going to mean for you and how many hours of fittings you were going to have. Their references, I mean, the references which I could see were from the very first book that Emerald Chobish, there'd be vintage Mugler or McQueen, there'd be a painting from whatever century. I mean, the references were endless and varied and it was, like Jacqueline said, finding the tonal space that we were going to work within and then constantly checking with the other departments too to kind of be like, okay, what are you guys doing over here?

24:56Like what we'd go and check like the sets that they were building and just get an idea. We're like, are we going mad? Are we going too crazy here? And just making sure that we were all kind of playing within this tonal space, which we ended up calling the inch. Because if you went a little too far, it felt too far. If you weren't far enough, it didn't feel right either. And I mean, Emerald would come into these fittings and I'd say almost every time we thought we were being crazy and too much. And then she'd be like, I think we should just add. And then she'd like decorate like my Christmas tree and just put like giant jewels in my hair or this or that.

25:32And, you know, and Sean and Nana from our hair and makeup department would come as well and be like kind of looking at hairstyles. It was really amazingly collaborative, which, again, doesn't always happen on every film. Jacqueline, I wonder if there were any costumes that felt like the most logistically challenging. What I'm thinking of is I haven't yet seen the film. I'm seeing it on Wednesday. I'm very excited. But I've heard about Jacob picking Margot up by the corset strings. This is loomed large in our office. And I'm wondering, how do you get, what strings are supporting a whole woman's body weight?

26:08The picking up with one hand, that was, yeah. That was written into the script. And again, what was the woman's name who made the leather? Hamzen. Hamzen. Who works with leather in such an incredible way. and she made this leather corset with this intricate sort of like tiny leather straps crisscrossing over in the front of the bodice. And that was where Jacob was going to put his, you know, get his fingers between the straps to be able to have the purchase to essentially bicep curl Kathy up to his eye level because he's extremely tall. So that was quite a thrilling costume to imagine and also, yeah, quite difficult practically.

26:50but it kind of came together beautifully. Yeah, actually the most difficult one, Margot, was the nude chill dress. Oh, my God. My God. Because it kept getting dirty or why? Well, it got invented really. It had a much longer life than we first thought because it just became the whole dress for running across the moors in the rain. It was layers. Like we wanted, what was the original idea? We wanted her to be kind of undressed, dressed. You know, she wouldn't have left the house undressed, obviously. So it ended up being just so many layers of tulle and like a nude sort of corset underneath and just stockings and enough tulle to be covered.

27:38But then with the rain machines and then taking it out on location, I ended up doing this a really long walk up a hill where Jacob's chasing me in the rain, screaming, Kathy, Kathy. And she's like, go away. I hate you and all that. And it was catching every twig and bramble. And I carried half the moors in that dress. It ended up weighing a half of the moors by the end of it. Oh, my God. Soaking up the rain and all the moors. I was kind of like at one with nature. and he had to pick me up and I was like, oh my God, I must wait. I must wait so much right now.