Emerald Fennell has revealed how 'intrusive thoughts and nightmares' have left her battling insomnia.

The Saltburn director, 38, got candid about her mental health and chatted about how she juggles motherhood and work in a new interview.

Speaking on the Perfect Day with Jessica Knappett podcast on Thursday she told how worrying about her two children - who she shares with partner Chris Vernon - have left her unable to sleep.

The director has had an incredible couple of years with films such as Saltburn and  Promising Young Woman which she produced when she was heavily pregnant with her second child.

She has now said: 'If I could live my dream life, half of my time would be asleep. I would. And as it is now, I have four to five hours sleep and it is an absolute misery.

'It's due to a combination of factors. It is children don't sleep, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, night sweats, the horror. The existential horror of death.

'Things that might happen to the children, things that might happen to me. It's just the night time, it used to be for fun and snogging and dancing and watching sexy late night films.

'And now it's just for the cold hand of terror around my neck.'

She also spoke about taking a short career break at the pinnacle of her success to raise her two kids after years of non-stop working.

Emerald said: 'What happens in anyone's life, but particularly in a woman's life, is that you know the two things tend to come at the same time, don't they. 

'You've spent 10 years, 15 years working to get to the stage and that's also at the time when you kind of you know if you want to have children sort of the time when you kind of need to start thinking about that. So it's inevitable.

'I actually think what was really great for me in lots of ways is it's important to say, it can be done.

'It can be done. I spent a lot of my like 20s anxious that it's not possible to do this stuff and it's hard It's like gruelling. It's physically hard and emotionally it's not wonderful, but it is possible.

'This is the first time I've had some time off in yeah, in five or six years and it is I've got to say, absolutely amazing.'

Emerald is set to direct a new movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it was announced in July.

The Academy Award winning filmmaker will next helm an adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic Gothic romance. 

The novel has been adapted numerous times, the most recent starring Kaya Scodelario as the tragic heroine Catherine Earnshaw in 2011. 

Sharing the news to X, Emerald shared a graphic of two hand drawn skeletons, with a quote from the book. 

'Be with me always. Take any form. Drive me mad,' a line said by Heathcliff after the death of Catherine.

Deadline has confirmed Emerald will be working with studio MRC for the upcoming film but no actors have yet been confirmed.

The 1847 novel was published by Emily Brontë under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, one year before her death. 

It follows the story of an orphan, Heathcliff, who is taken in by the Earnshaw family, he later grows close to their daughter and his foster sister, Cathy. 

The first known adaptation was from A. V. Bramble in 1920, with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon’s 1939 version being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. 

Born in 1818 in West Yorkshire, Emily was the fifth of six children, and spent most of her short life in the moorland village of Haworth, where her Irish father Patrick was curate.

But life dealt Emily a series of terrible blows as she lost her mother when she was three, then two older sisters when she was seven.

Following her trauma, the novelist retreated into a fantasy world, writing stories and poetry with her siblings.

The writer poured her suffering and passion into Wuthering Heights, a wrenching love story as raw as the Yorkshire Moors on which it's set.

It was in 2014 when Emerald sprang to fame in as boisterous redheaded nurse Patsy Mount on Call The Midwife.

In addition to writing screenplays, she has penned a series of novels, which have also earned her acclaim.

Her first two books, Shiverton Hall in 2013 and its sequel The Creeper (shortlisted for the Waterstones 2014 Children's Book Prize), were written for older children.

2023's Saltburn shocked viewers upon its release, with some loving the film's outrageous moments and others left outraged.

Perfect Day with Jessica Knappett is available wherever you get your podcasts, with new episodes released every Thursday.