Oh, it annoys the hell out of me that every casting director has cast Heathcliff as an Englishman. It's repeated over and over again in the book that he's "swarthy" and "a gypsy child." No one has ever cast a Spanish or Slavic actor in the role, and I think that would be so much more accurate. When I was younger, I always wanted to see Goran Visnjic do it, but now I think they need to look to Benicio Del Toro.

But English book, English actor ... sigh

I've never had anyone outside of a Victorian literature course agree with me on the Heathcliff point before! How fun. I totally agree with you about Goran Visnjic, but I'm not as sure about Del Toro. He's a great actor, don't get me wrong, but I've always thought of Heathcliff more in a Slavic/Romani vein than in a Spanish one.

Just to take this one step further, Bertha Rochester was also portrayed as ambigously racial. She was from Jamaica and described as "dark" and bestial (which would've applied to blacks or partial-blacks in the imperialist [racist] British discourse). Sigh.

LOL, it's the first time I've had this convo with anyone outside English too. :D Everyone just says "Did you ever see the Laurence Olivier one?"

I don't even care if they cast Heathcliff as handsome -- I always figured we were getting one person's perspective on the story, and beauty was in the eye of the beholder. But to cast someone as young and tender as Ed Westwick or even Tom Hardy (who did ok, but I expected something a lot meaner out of him) just really defangs the character. I can't believe no director has ever wanted to tap into the uglier parts of the character and the story. I know it's romantic, but it was the darkness of the obsession that I loved, not the playtime on the moors.

At least there's the book. It can outlast any adaptation, and Twilight too. :P