Warning: Some light spoilers ahead for the Wuthering Heights movie.
Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington, who play young Heathcliff and young Cathy, respectively, in Emerald Fennell's new Wuthering Heights, had no idea their feature-film debut would be in something quite so massive. "Obviously, I knew it was a big film, but I didn't expect this to be fans outside waiting for Jacob [Elordi] and Margot [Robbie]," Cooper tells Teen Vogue about the film's world premiere. “It was just mad to see, really.”
That over-the-top scale has applied to everything from the press to the fan reception to the filming of the movie itself. Both Cooper, 16, and Mellington, 14, reminisce about running through the wide open moors in the lush gothic landscape Fennell captures onscreen. The loose adaptation of Emily Brontë's 1847 novel is heavily focused on Cathy and Heathcliff's doomed love story, but through their young counterparts, perhaps we get the most depth in this story: the inhibition and recklessness of youth, the mutual ferocity that binds these two characters together, and how much they are at the mercy of the adults around them.
Below, Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper tell us all about how the younger versions of Cathy and Heathcliff see each other, their favorite on-set memories, and what they took home from Wuthering Heights.
Charlotte Mellington: Cathy's so sassy. She bosses everyone around, she owns the place. Because her dad isn't around much, she's like the lady of the house.
Owen Cooper: I think Emerald just mostly said, "Look vulnerable." And there was a scene where I meet Cathy's dad for the first time, and it's got the two maids there, and then Cathy (Charlotte) grabs my hand, and we'd run. **~~into the thing.**I always remember Emerald saying, "These people could be doing anything to you. They could be planning to kill you. You don't know." Because [my character doesn't] really know how to speak, read, write anything then, I was just new to it all. I thought it was a bit weird to act at first, and then Emerald—being an amazing director—she just helped me through it.
CM: Also in that scene, to you, I'm this psychotic child. I'm like, "Ugh, can I dress him up?" He's like, "What the hell? Who is this kid?" I'm quite frightening, honestly, in that. I would be frightened anyway, because it seemed really weird.
OC: There was loads of us that it was first time for. I don't want to assume, but I think it was Vy's [Vy Nguyen, who plays young Nellie] first film. And we'd have to do tutoring with all the picture doubles and stuff. So it was all our first rodeo on a film.
CM: It made it quite nice. Because it was all our first time, we were learning as we go.
OC: We were all in the same boat.
OC: I think Adolescence definitely taught me about the ins and outs of the film set, but I don't think anything will ever compare to the [scale of Wuthering Heights]. I don't have any photos on my phone, but the set, you'd walk in and it was just in a warehouse. You'd have Ernshaw's house in front of you, then you'd go around the corner and it's just a massive cave thing. It was just insane.
CM: You walk in and you just look up and around because it's so massive. It was insane because I'd never seen anything like that before.
OC: It was mad. Obviously, Adolescence didn't even really have a set. It had the episode three room and that was about it. But the [Wuthering Heights] set was just incredible. Filming-wise it was a lot different to things I've done before.
CM: I missed [an audition] because I was on holiday. That was the biggest panic attack in my life. I was like, "Oh my God, am I going to miss this [opportunity]?" We went to the final and then we did the chemistry read together. I think we were last [to go on that day].
OC: Yeah, last two. I did a self-tape, and then I think they said no. Then I said, "Meet me in person and then I'll be able to do it." So I went down to London, and I was 15, and all the other kids around me were, like, eight. I just stuck out. It was awful. [Then] Emerald kept me in the room and brought in different girls. Charlotte came in last. And then they just said, "Yeah, we'll contact your agents," and stuff. I heard a couple of weeks later saying I got the part, and it came around quite quick.
CM: I remember after a couple of chemistry reads with a couple of the potential Heathcliffs, they sent me away. I sat in a pub eating chips and I was like, "Oh my God, am I going to go home?" We were literally waiting for an hour with the phone right there, and then they called us back in. That was when I went into the chemistry read with Owen.
CM: Cathy is savage. She's a wild thing. She's grown up in a house without a mother figure. Her dad isn't around. She's grown up with the servants, I guess. And she's just all for thrill. She loves watching this gory image because she's just so excited by it.
I remember Emerald telling me, like, "She loves this." I think the first time we recorded it, I was like, "Oh my God, there's a hanging man!" So scared. She's like, "No, you love this. This is what Cathy loves. And this was [like] going to the cinema back in the day." So I took that, and the fact that everyone around that time was quite savage—honestly, that was entertainment. So I took bits from that and put it into my facial expressions looking at a dead man, [but] happy about it.
OC: I'd like to think I'm older than I am. Sometimes I catch myself just speaking to random people that I've never met. Like the boom operators, I just speak to them. And I always catch myself, thinking, I'm a 16-year-old and I'm speaking to some random man. It's a bit weird. But it's a bit weird on a film set because, in the film I'm doing now, there's not a lot of kids. It's just me and adults, like Adolescence. But I don't know… I like to think I'm older than I am, but I get brought down back to earth quite quick.
CM: I think that's the same with me, honestly. I like to think I'm quite mature; I don't think I really am.
CM: On my last day of filming, Emerald presented me with my doll in my bed. It was the creepiest doll ever. I think Owen got given the book that he reads from, [when] I'm trying to teach [him to read]. Vy got one of the hanging dolls in my bedroom and I got this porcelain doll.
When Emerald presented it to me, I nearly screamed. My friends came over and were like, "What is that? What is that? Some kind of demon?" But actually, I really like it. It's very Cathy, very Wuthering Heights. I think that was the best thing I could have kept.
CM: I think the moors are really nostalgic. Just running on the moors. I think that was really fun.
Owen, you might disagree with this, but when we were under the pike and we were getting rained on a lot. We were getting drenched! I just felt that was so fun.
OC: No, it was the running bit that was the funnest, because I had these minging old slippers on that I couldn't even run in. It was muddy and it was horrible and I kept on slipping.
CM: Did you slip over? I can't remember.
OC: On a couple of takes, I did.
But in every break we had, me, Vy, and Charlotte would just constantly be playing Uno. Even though we were supposed to be getting into the character, two minutes before a take we'd be playing Uno. And it would be a World Cup final! It was so competitive. There'd be blood, sweat, and tears from that game.
CM: Genuinely. Me and Owen, we were so competitive in that. And Vy was the peacekeeper. She was trying to keep the peace and we were basically about to throw hands.
CM: Yeah. I was sitting my seat like, "Oh my gosh, I cannot watch myself." I sat next to my dad through the entire movie. It was just a little bit awkward. I was sitting there like, "Oh God."
OC: When I watched myself—I hate watching myself—I always imagined what I was doing at that time. So watching the movie for the first time was obviously bringing back all the memories that we had on the set.
CM: I just remember we'd do the scene and everyone would be like, "Sublime, guys, just wonderful." And then they'd be like, “Okay, again.”
CM: I think it tries to keep the innocence of their love. They do love each other. All these things have happened, and they're trying to get revenge, and it's all quite messy. But when you strip it down, they do love each other. I think that reminds you of the innocence and how they were.
OC: I'll sleep.
CM: Watch movies. I play football quite a bit, actually.
CM: No. I don't really watch football. I remember, Owen, you made fun of me quite a lot for this. When I said, "I enjoy football." You're like, "Name three players." I remember that. I just go along. I'm tagging along with what my dad supports and my uncles support. Maybe I'll go to the occasional game, but not very much.
OC: The film that I'm doing at the minute is like I've got to learn so many things. I don't think I can just expose what those things are, but I've got to learn so many new things that I would never, ever do. I just practice and practice and practice. PlayStation, sleep, practice. Yeah, that's about it.
OC: I think Liverpool is a big place in my heart. And my oldest brother—I've got two brothers, so my oldest one, Connor—he said a couple of days before, "Make sure you say 'you'll never walk alone' at the end of speech." But I already had that in my mind that I was going to do that. Well, [I should say], if I was going to win. I didn't expect to win, but if I was going to win, then I was always going to say, "You'll never walk alone." And then my brother brought it up, so I had to keep that promise.
CM: Basically, I [have] just [been doing] preparation for my drama GCSE [a type of course commonly taken by 15 and 16 year olds in the U.K.], which is stressful. But I'm doing all these after-school sessions, and everyone's panicking now. I'm like, "Oh my God!" It's next Tuesday. Just genuinely makes me go ill.
OC: [To Charlotte] What's your dream role?
CM: Dream role? Oh my God. Probably, oh, I'd love to do something like Stranger Things. That's the ultimate thing for everybody, I think.
OC: Well, it's over now.
CM: Yeah, I mean, thanks.
OC: Sorry to break your heart.
CM: Just imagine having a role like Millie Bobby Brown. That'd be crazy.
OC: [To Charlotte] Who's your favorite actress?
CM: I love Kevin Hart.
OC: Kevin Hart? He's your favorite “actress”?
CM: Oh, okay. I can say actor or actress. So Kevin Hart, he's so funny, and I literally went through a marathon of watching all his movies. He's great. And I love Millie Bobby Brown. I think she's amazing.
OC: No, no, no. I'm done. I'm done.
CM: Since when did you become the interviewer?
