Heathcliff and Cathy reach such passionate Heights in ITV adaptation - is it for real? (8/28/09)

By David Wigg

When Heathcliff met Cathy Earnshaw, the woman who was to become his lover and eternal soulmate, for ITV1's new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it wasn't quite the earth-moving coupling that Emily Bronte had in mind when she wrote one of literature's greatest love stories.

Forget all that bodice-ripping stuff about the darkly handsome man gazing into the eyes of the pale-skinned beauty trembling in his arms. When Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley got together, they bonded over endless cups of tea.

'I hadn't met Tom before, so after the first day of rehearsals I thought, as we are going to fall so madly, deeply in love, we had better get to know each other,' says Charlotte.

'So I went up to him as he was rummaging in his car boot and said: "What are you up to, then?" He turned around and suddenly he wasn't Heathcliff any more. He morphed into the role he'd played before that, changing his whole being into Charles Bronson, Britain's most dangerous prisoner!

''I thought: "Oh God, what have I got myself into?" I found out later that Tom switches that role on and off all the time - mainly for other people's entertainment.'

But the cups of tea did the trick, and soon they were sharing a car most days on the way to the film locations on the rugged Yorkshire moors.

'We had a lot of chemistry, even though we didn't have the same taste in music. In the car I'd have to listen to his gangsta rap - Charles Bronson again. I never quite got over his extraordinary transformation.'

They were thrown together again for Sky1's gritty crime drama The Take, shown earlier this year. One of the most harrowing scenes was when she is raped by Hardy's character.

'Because we'd worked on Wuthering Heights - when the love scene was really passionate - we had a good shorthand between us and knew what we were doing. But as well as we knew each other, it had to be handled with delicacy and trust.'

Naturally, there has been gossip and speculation about whether their onscreen partnership has developed into a real romance, and one newspaper reported that Hardy had even left Rachael Speed, the mother of his baby son Louis, for Charlotte.

The story has also circulated on the internet, but Charlotte insists it is not true. 'I share a flat in West London with three other girls,' she says. 'There is no man in my life.'

Charlotte, 27, had been only six months out of drama school when she was chosen by Coky Giedroyc, who also directed Oliver Twist on TV, for the challenging role of Cathy.

She found herself following in the footsteps of many well-known actresses, among them most enduringly Merle Oberon opposite Laurence Oliver in the 1939 film, Anna Calder-Marshall with Timothy Dalton in 1970 and Juliette Binoche with Ralph Fiennes in 1992.

'No one was more surprised, and thrilled, than me when I got the part,' says Charlotte. 'On the day I got the phone call to confirm it, I was appearing in The Cherry Orchard at Chichester Festival Theatre.

'I remember running outside into the courtyard where Diana Rigg and Maureen Lipman were standing talking, and I screamed with happiness. I couldn't believe it. I rang my Mum and Dad and my close friends. It was a beautiful sunny day and I was jumping up and down with excitement.'

She hadn't read Wuthering Heights, and when she got the script she realised what a challenging role it was for a newcomer.

'Then I had a few days of just being enormously scared. Everyone was telling me not to watch other adaptations, but I wanted to see how other people had approached the story. I terrified myself.'

But she had no difficulty in identifying with the spirited, strong-headed young woman she was playing.

'I see a lot of me in her earthiness. For me, climbing trees and being a bit of a tomboy in my younger days are what I have in common with Cathy.

'And, of course, I understand the love she has for Heathcliff. I think most women when they're young would understand how she felt about him.

'I certainly remember experiencing that sense of obsession with my first love. I think in acting you often just take what you've experienced and you make it larger or smaller.

'There's plenty in there. She's so many things, there's bound to be something you can identify with. I love romantic stories, particularly tragic ones, like Heathcliff and Cathy's. People don't seem to fall in love like that any more.'

Hardy, one of Britain's most versatile young actors (as well as Bronson, he's been in Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, The Virgin Queen and Black Hawk Down opposite Eric Bana and Ewan McGregor) found himself mentoring her.

'On the first day of filming, there was a scene where Tom and I are in the stables together,' says Charlotte. 'We were in an embrace and Tom kept turning me around in between takes. He explained that it was to keep me in full camera view all the time. Little things like that were so helpful and really generous.'

Writer Peter Bowker has reworked Bronte's story, introducing a scene verging on sado-masochism where Heathcliff as an adopted orphan is brutally whipped by the wealthy snob Hindley (Burn Gorman).

Bowker has also put in a scene in which Heathcliff takes Hindley's fortune through a card game and there is a passionate love-making scene on screen between Heathcliff and Cathy.

'It's funny, because people always ask about the love scenes, but the last thing they are is romantic or sexual', says Charlotte. 'Andrew Lincoln, who plays Edgar Linton, the man she marries, and I had quite a good laugh doing ours.

'But half the time you have to get angles right so you're thinking about the technical stuff and making sure your hair's not going in your mouth. You're very rarely thinking about anything to do with passion. Either that or you're nervous.

'Andrew and I made a pact to just go for it and in the first take we gave far too much. After that, the embarrassment was out there and it was much easier to do it.'

Charlotte's father, Michael, is an engineer who runs his own business with her brother Simon, who's ten years older. Her mother, Margaret, is a haematology nurse and bereavement counsellor.

They live in Co. Durham and Charlotte remained close to home while at university in Durham, studying English. 'I didn't really do any of the serious drama stuff,' she says. 'I auditioned for Three Sisters, but I didn't have a clue who they were.

'Instead, my friend Tiffany and I would come up with the most debauched sketches to take to the Edinburgh Festival.'

In a two-year break between Durham and a London acting course, Charlotte taught drama to disabled children. She also persuaded the Arts Council to give her a £5,000 grant and won a playwriting award for Shaking Cecilia, a comedy she took on tour to Brussels.

Later this year, she will appear in the new series of ITV1's Miss Marple, with Julia McKenzie in the title role.
Looking back on Wuthering Heights, Charlotte says: 'It was fun, but very hard work and the pressure was particularly great as it was my first big role.

'Because it was all very emotional, when I'd finished the job I was drained. I went on holiday with my family to Portugal, where I slept pretty much the entire week.'

• Wuthering Heights is on ITV1, Sunday and Monday, 9pm.