Who Is Alison Oliver? (& Is This Irish Star Emerald Fennell’s Muse?)

Emerald Fennell’s third feature film is finally here – and if there’s one thing the filmmaker is good at, it’s causing a stir. From casting two Aussies in the British lead roles and casting Charli XCX as her soundtrack partner to sexualising (or oversexualising, as the critics would put it) a piece of treasured Victorian literature, Wuthering Heights has already caused a stir before most Brits have had the chance to see it in the cinema.

Releasing nationwide tomorrow (13 February), as well as the headline-making lead stars Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, Fennell’s film features a stacked cast of familiar faces – not least Irish star Alison Oliver. Wondering why you recognise her? Here’s why.

Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights. (Warner Bros)

Who Is Alison Oliver? All The Reasons You Recognise Her

Alison Oliver is a 28-year-old Irish actress best known for her role as Frances in Conversations with Friends (2022), the TV adaptation of Irish author Sally Rooney’s debut novel, published in 2017.

When she clinched the role – which came after the whopping success of Normal People (2020), starring Paul Mescal (a friend) and Daisy Edgar-Jones – Oliver had just finished studying at The Lir Academy, Trinity College Dublin’s drama school, and coincidentally Mescal’s alma mata (as well as Rooney’s and the university of both of their respective characters). She was the only newcomer in a cast that also featured Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke.

Joe Alwyn & Alison Oliver in Conversations with Friends. (BBC)

But perhaps Oliver will now be best-known for her role as Isabella Linton in Emerald Fennell’s hotly anticipated adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic Gothic romance, Wuthering Heights (1847). Spoiled sister to Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), no spoilers here, but let’s just say she plays a key role in Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) and Cathy’s (Margot Robbie) forbidden romance, and is being described as the film’s certified scene-stealer.

Of course, Fennell’s film is making headlines for its raunchiness, but this isn’t Oliver’s first rodeo. In fact she had a small role in Fennell’s similarly scandalised Saltburn (2023), playing the chainsmoking, panda-eyed, bleach blonde Venetia Catton, sister to protagonist Felix (Elordi again).

Alison Oliver as Venetia in Saltburn (2023)

It’s clear Fennell likes to keep things in the coterie, running a thread of frequent collaborators through her films: Oliver, Elordi, Carey Mulligan and Margot Robbie, whose production company LuckyChap has produced all three of Fennell’s films to date, plus crews of the same people behind the scenes.

Whatever comes next for Fennell, we know Oliver is in her good books, having given her the role of Isabella over text in the film’s early days. ‘If you want Isabella, she’s yours,’ the writer-directed reportedly wrote to Oliver. She later told Elle Oliver is ‘the most remarkable actor’, adding: ‘We saw so many people for Saltburn, and Alison came in and was just so unbelievably real. Even the way she breathes is different.’

Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights. (Warner Bros)

Elsewhere you might recognise Oliver from Task (2025), HBO’s FBI drama centering on Mark Ruffalo’s former priest of an FBI agent Tom Brandis; Oliver stars as Lizzie, an inexperienced PSP trooper on his task force.

And if you often visit the theatre in London, you might have caught Oliver on stage: her credits include Women, Beware the Devil and Portia Coughlan at the Almeida and Dancing at Lughnasa and The Other Place at the National Theatre, the latter an Oedipus and Antigone mash-up of a thriller also starring Emma d’Arcy and Tobias Menzies.

In her personal life, Oliver has appeared in a smattering of headlines thanks to a rumoured relationship with Josh O’Connor, the 35-year-old Brit known for roles in The Crown (2019-20), Challengers (2024) and Wake Up Dead Man (2025). Neither have confirmed nor denied the relationship, but it’s another case of keeping things within the same universe: O’Connor just starred in The History of Sound (2025) opposite Oliver’s good friend Paul Mescal.

Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff & Margot Robbie as Cathy in Wuthering Heights. (Warner Bros)

Who Else Stars In Wuthering Heights?

Wuthering Heights is full to the brim with talent. The main cast is as follows:

• Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw
• Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff
• Charlotte Mellington as young Cathy
• Owen Cooper as young Heathcliff
• Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton
• Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton
• Hong Chau as Nelly Dean
• Vy Nguyen as young Nelly Dean
• Martin Clunes
• Ewan Mitchell

WATCH

Wuthering Heights lands in UK cinemas on 13 February 2026.