I remember the first day, being surrounded by people we’d literally found in the street, improvising; we gave them costumes and then plonked them down in this house in the middle of nowhere and expected them to act. I remember them all looking at me, thinking what are we going to do? It was quite a challenge, but we all got on like a house on fire. I think I made quite a lot of trouble for myself, but I seem to like making trouble. I like being challenged in that way. There’s something about having to really use your brain – the more I have to think, the more I enjoy it. I do sometimes push it too far!”

The novel’s most unforgettable character is perhaps the vast, rambling expanse of the moors, a landscape that holds a particular mystery, a perennial suggestion of the uncontained passions and haunting quality of romantic love. As a native of London, the allure of the moors was something Arnold easily tapped into: “I wanted the film to have this wildness to it, out in the middle of nowhere in the moors. I’m always eager to get out of the city, and I think I get that from when I was a kid. I don’t know where it comes from – this desire to roam. I used to go up to Yorkshire a lot with friends and just walk. I knew the moors a little bit. I love the city but I also love being out in wild spaces. I do have a feeling for it.”

Wuthering Heights opens at Film Forum on Oct. 5