Interview with Brendan Cowell
Interview with Brendan Cowell, who plays Peter Langly, News Editor of The Herald.
Published: 2 September 2018
It's about what happens to these people when they do this job - the professional impact on their personal lives
Brendan Cowell plays Peter Langly, News Editor of The Herald.
Tell us about your character?
Peter is News Editor and Deputy Editor of The Herald. He’s a married man with children. He loves his job. He’s incredibly passionate about news. He’s obsessed with the truth and with doing the right thing. He doesn’t want to be editor, he’s not loud and outspoken, I think he’s probably a frustrated novelist. He’s been there a long time and he doesn’t want anything to change – and it is changing. But as it’s changing, he starts to change, which I think is interesting.
What can you tell us about the story of Press?
It’s the professional impact on their personal lives, which I think is what Mike is really getting at. It’s what happens to these people when they do this job.
Tell us about Mike Bartlett’s scripts.
That’s the thing with Mike’s writing, you read it and it’s really naturalistic and then you realise there’s a lot of stuff lurking underneath it. You discover more in the playing of it than in the initial read. That’s the trick of his work.
What research did you do for Press and what did you learn?
The funny thing is that you’re in a room and they’re talking about Syria or Korea or something quite serious, and then they’ll flip straight to Great British Bake Off with equal seriousness, because it’s taking up the same amount of paper on page 17… and the person who is talking about Bake Off, well that’s their position and they are bloody serious about the person who made the savoury muffin. They’re possibly going to win it because they have real talent under pressure. That’s fascinating.
There’s also the silent understanding in the conferences of who is going to speak next and who’s job is what job and the little arguments that take place. People argue very passionately but very non-personally, it’s not vindictive. I loved watching that. The pressure that they are under - getting that paper out every day, getting it right - it’s enormous. Every conversation they have ends up in the news.
Why do you think Press will appeal to audiences?
It’s fascinating and I think viewers will feel the same way. They will get a bird’s eye view into where all the stuff that they read on the tube comes from.
