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Ellie Kendrick plays Leona Manning-Lynd, a reporter at The Herald.

Tell us about your character?
I love her. She’s a vivacious, intelligent, whip-smart young woman. Being a journalist is really important to Leona; she’s ambitious and has always known that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t quite realise how much work she has cut out for her when she starts the job. She thinks it’s going to be a real shoe-in for her.

Being a journalist for Leona is about getting the story and getting it right - but she’s convinced that her way of doing things is right. Her way of doing things is a very modern, tech-savvy way of chasing the story. So she would write emails, look people up online, Facebook-stalk them… and she thinks that’s the best way of getting all the information. She doesn’t realise that Holly’s method - which is digging deep, going through thousands of folders, staying up until 3am - can yield results as well. She’s got to learn to challenge herself and work a lot harder than she’d expected to make it in the industry.

She’s very middle class, well-spoken and comes from an intellectual, cultured background. She’s passionate about making sure that this newspaper and its heart and message remain true, whilst at the same time as making sure it remains contemporary and isn’t engulfed by papers like The Post. She’s ambitious, but for her, journalism is about getting the story right for a modern audience and making sure that people of her age are able to consume the news in the way that she wants them to.

At first there’s a sense of inadequacy that Leona has, but she has to learn how to push herself much further than she was expecting and meet the challenges that Holly sets for her. She ends up developing a real thirst for journalism and getting the story - she develops a real rigour and a hard-working ethos that pays off. The characterisation of her and the little jokes that Mike has worked in have been really fun to play, it's been a joy to perform her. 

What can you tell us about the story of Press?
It’s about these industries as a whole, but it’s also very focused on the individual personal stories of the different characters within those two different offices.

Tell us about Mike Bartlett’s scripts.
I was already excited before I even opened up the script - and then when I started to read it I thought, I’ve just got to be in this. The characters are so well drawn. His dialogue is really smart, really clever. It can be very funny but also very perceptive and precise.

What research did you do for Press and what did you learn?
As a group we all went into a few different newspaper establishments to try and get a sense of the different workplaces that we might be compared to in this show. I also have friends who are journalists so I was able to talk with them a little bit about their experiences of working in the office and going out and following up on stories. The sheer amount of work that’s involved in following up an investigation was something I found really interesting to learn about. Perhaps it will be interesting for journalists to see a bunch of actors playing their roles.

What’s the biggest challenge you faced?
One of the most exciting challenges has been getting the comic timing of this character right, as well as trying to make her grounded in reality and a relatable character who you might see in your everyday life. The script is so delicious, the words are so much fun to say and perform…  And making sure that we all, as a team, make the most out of Mike’s words and honour them - that was important to all of us. Also getting a chance to do a comic role, that’s always something that I enjoy.

Why do you think Press will excite and appeal to audiences?
It’s got the exciting, nail-biting competition that is really fast-paced between these two establishments; it’s got the office politics, which are really juicy and fun, and that anyone who works in an office is familiar with. I think people will find it really relatable. There’s rivalry and there’s gossip and backstabbing, but also there’s a lot of friendships that you see played out in each of those places… and romances… There are a lot of characters having to question their moral and ethical standpoints.

Describe the show in a sentence.
Values, ethics, morals, office politics, global politics and the relationships which blossom throughout the arc of the series.