Ellie Nightingale (Sophie Porley)

Hollyoaks newcomer Sophie Porley has revealed that her character Ellie Nightingale will be dishing out put-downs when she arrives in the village next month.

Ellie is one of six new arrivals who'll be causing a stir in the village when local pub The Dog In The Pond comes under new ownership in late October.
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Sophie Porley as Ellie Nightingale in Hollyoaks
© Lime Pictures
Sophie Porley as Ellie Nightingale

Former Brookside and Family Affairs star David Easter will be heading up the new family in his role as Mac Nightingale, who has already been introduced as Cindy Cunningham's secret husband. Ellie is Mac's daughter and is spoiled rotten by the pub boss.

Speaking to Digital Spy about her role, Porley revealed: "When Ellie arrives in the village she thinks, 'Oh great, what is this place? Who are you people?' She thinks that everything is quaint compared to her old life in Brighton and she doesn't care about anyone in the village. She loves her brothers and her dad, but that's it.

"Ellie rubs people up the wrong way from day one. She's so rude but also quite funny, so I think the audience are going to like her. I think she's going to be a bit of a bitch, but a funny one who people will hopefully warm to.

"I do get my lines and think, 'I can't say that!' It's really fun, so I enjoy playing those scenes. Ellie's first row is with Cindy and she even asks if she's going through the menopause! That was the first scene that I filmed! At that point, Ellie doesn't know that Cindy is her dad's secret wife - she has no idea about that."
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Amrit Maghera and Sophie Porley as Neeta Kaur and Ellie Nightingale in Hollyoaks
© Lime Pictures
Neeta Kaur and Ellie Nightingale

Ellie will also quickly show her ruthless side when she tries to sabotage Mac's current relationship with his much younger partner Neeta Kaur (Amrit Maghera).

Mac arrives in the village without Neeta, so Ellie hatches a cunning plan to stop her from following them to Hollyoaks.

"Ellie's really not happy about this relationship," Porley explained. "She sees the move to Hollyoaks as a good excuse to get her father away from Neeta. When they arrive in the village, Ellie steals Mac's phone and sends Neeta texts telling her not to come. But then she turns up anyway!

"Ellie does everything to try and sabotage his relationship. She doesn't have a love interest of her own yet, as so far nobody's really taken her fancy. Ellie is just horrible to everyone, but I'm sure at some point there will be a love interest. At the moment she's just focused on ruining everybody else's love life, but I'm sure she'll be ruining her own eventually!"

Porley originally came to prominence as a model but quickly discovered a passion for acting. Hollyoaks is her first regular TV role.

"I started off as a Storm model but I never thought about doing modelling myself," she said. "Someone approached me so I went along with it and it was from modelling that I discovered that I really liked acting. When I did TV commercials and that kind of thing, I realised that it was on-camera things that I enjoyed. So I started training on evenings and weekends and then it snowballed from there. A lot of people believed in me and now I'm on Hollyoaks. It was a lot of years in the making but it was all worth it."

Hollyoaks introduces the Nightingale family on Monday, October 26 at 6.30pm on Channel 4.

Hollyoaks is planning to explore the issue of sexual consent in a gritty new storyline for Ellie Nightingale.

Ellie will feature in devastating scenes next month when she goes home with a man she's just met, then wakes up the next morning with no recollection of having sex with him.

Hollyoaks bosses have been working with Rape Crisis and youth charity The Mix while devising the storyline, which will be a long-running plot for the Channel 4 soap.

The story begins when Freshers' Week hits the village and Lisa Loveday convinces Ellie to attend a 'Traffic Light Party' at The Loft.

While there, Ellie is attracted to village newcomer Nick Savage and they later head back to her place after a few drinks.

When they wake up together the next morning, Nick reveals that they slept together but Ellie is distraught as she has little memory of what happened after they left the club.

Hollyoaks embarks on a dark new storyline next week as Ellie Nightingale spends a drunken night with newcomer Nick Savage, only to be left traumatised the next morning when she can't remember consenting to sex.

The show's bosses have been working with Rape Crisis and youth charity The Mix while devising the plot, which will be a long-runner for the Channel 4 soap in the months ahead.

Here, Sophie Porley and Ben Ryan-Davies – who play Ellie and Nick – and Hollyoaks' executive producer Bryan Kirkwood reveal an inside perspective on what to expect from the gritty story.

Is it daunting coming into the show with such a serious storyline, Ben?

Ben: "Yeah, when I first got the job, all sorts went through my mind. But in terms of what we're doing with the storyline, I think it's going to really split opinion. I'm very interested to see how the audience is going to react to Nick. It might just split the viewers right down the middle. Half might be on Nick's side and half might be on Ellie's side."

Would you say the scenes are clear-cut with regards to Nick's actions?

Ben: "Absolutely not and that's the important thing for us. There's one atmosphere between them beforehand and a completely different one the next morning."

Sophie: "When we were watching the scenes back ourselves, I even said 'I feel sorry for Nick' and Ben said 'I feel sorry for Ellie'. The point is to make the audience question what's happened between them."

Bryan: "It's also the start of a story. Rather than get to know Nick first, we decided to make this one of his first episodes and then explore a long-running storyline.

"We'll investigate that Nick has boundary issues with his future girlfriend Holly and we'll investigate the subconscious effect on Ellie too. Ellie doesn't think she's been raped, but there are very dark and ongoing subconscious reactions for Ellie in her relationship with Freddie after this."

Were there any particular inspirations when planning the storyline?

Bryan: "I was really inspired by Thames Valley Police's 'cup of tea' campaign. I thought it was brilliant and so simple. They've put together an animation showing that if somebody wants a cup of tea at 12pm, you shouldn't pour it down their throat when they're not capable of saying they don't want the cup of tea anymore at 12.05pm. I thought that was the type of story we should be telling.

"We'll take the audience on a journey and the reactions will be mixed. Some people will be on Nick's side and some people will be on Ellie's."

Do you think it will be a case of men siding with Nick and women siding with Ellie?

Ben: "It's interesting, actually, because I was thinking about lad culture and what a gang of men's attitudes towards women can be when they're all together. It'd be very different than if they were with their mum or something. They'd never act like that in front of their mum.

"But I don't think it's going to be as clear-cut as that. I don't think it'll be as simple as the men siding with Nick and women siding with Ellie. I think it'll be a mixed bag from everyone."

Sophie: "We've even discussed it a lot at work and it's not a gender thing, it just depends on your own beliefs. Definitely everyone's had sex and not said: 'Are you okay with having sex with me right now?' You've not got contracts out for it and we're not saying that's what should be done, but there needs to be a thought of consent. And if someone has passed out, they can't consent."


Digital Spy

We've already delivered high praise for Hollyoaks' sexual consent episodewhich saw Ellie Nightingale and Nick Savage's dark new storyline begin, but did you notice that it was written by an ex-cast member?

Zoe Lister, who played Zoe Carpenter between 2006 and 2010, has been part of Hollyoaks' scriptwriting team since 2014. So who better for us to quiz for an inside perspective on the emotional new storyline?

This is the biggest Hollyoaks episode that you've written to date. How did you feel about taking it on?

"I was really thrilled to be asked to write it. The issue of consent is something I feel very strongly about, so I knew I'd have a lot to say. I felt the weight of responsibility to do the story justice though, so there were definitely some sleepless nights!"

Is the writing process slightly different when it's such a big episode? Do more people have to have input?

"I definitely wrote more drafts of this episode than any other! But it's always a team effort. Producers, storyliners and editors work so hard on every episode and this time we were also working very closely with Rape Crisis and [youth charity] The Mix to make sure we were telling the most truthful version of the story."

Why was it important to make this a single-story episode?

"We wanted to set this episode apart somehow and do a 'day-in-the-life' style of a normal girl enjoying Freshers' Week. It's a very real and relatable story - and one that countless young people have found themselves in."

Hollyoaks boss Bryan Kirkwood has said there were a lot of discussions about how exactly to play the bedroom scenes, in particular how conscious Ellie should be in those final moments. Can you tell us anything about that?

"Ellie is really drunk in those final scenes. We didn't want her completely passed out because that would very clearly be rape, but we wanted to spark a debate. The fact is that if you're with a girl who's completely wasted, it's not actually possible to get consent."

How did you want to approach the issue of whether consent had been given or not?

"I remember being very clear in my first draft that there was no question around whether Ellie had been raped or not - she definitely had. I even had her say 'no' in a very drunk, not very forceful way. She still seemed to be having a good time even, but it was there.

"In the end, I had to take my opinions out of the writing! My editor - the brilliant Matt Anderson - and I had huge discussions and arguments. At every draft that scene was different, but I'm really happy with where we got to in the end.

"If Ellie had said no, we would be telling a very different story. It's totally right that it should be much more ambiguous. We want the audience to talk about it and argue about it. Ellie doesn't say no but she doesn't say yes either."

Students who discussed this episode for Channel 4's spinoff documentary on the storyline seemed to reach a consensus that consent hadn't been given. Do you think this will be the more widespread reaction too?

"I hope that this will be the main reaction, but I'm sure it won't be the only one. If it starts a debate, then that's brilliant - it's where education starts. There doesn't have to be any 'grey areas' when it comes to consent, but unfortunately there is.

"I think there have been strong campaigns in the past to highlight to young men that 'no means no'. But there are different degrees of 'no' and that's what we're dealing with here.

"Consent can be taken away - just because you've been invited back to a girl's house and she's seemed up for it, doesn't mean she can't change her mind."

What kind of reaction are you hoping for?

"I'll be over the moon if it gets people talking. The conversation needs to progress enough so that it's totally normal for a man to keep checking in with their partner to make sure she's still comfortable and happy to have sex, especially if she's drunk."

The students in Channel 4's documentary had quite a bit of discussion about the moment where Ellie tried to get out of the bedroom to brush her teeth. Was she trying to get away from Nick, or did she just want to freshen up?

"I think that if a woman's in a situation where she's invited a man home and then changes her mind about sex, it's a really tricky place to be. It's not always understood that consent can be taken away.

"Maybe she would find it very difficult at that point to say that sex isn't on the agenda and look instead for distraction techniques. I think where Nick goes wrong is not to check she's still comfortable with where this is headed. He just assumes that because he's in her room, he's got a green flag and I think unfortunately this is still a very prevailing attitude."

Should we see Nick as a sex offender, or is the issue more complicated than that?

"This is very complicated but we've been very careful to paint Nick as an everyday bloke. He's not a soap villain, he behaves in a way that many other men would in the same situation. The key is to start the conversation amongst young people that actually what happened in that bedroom was not okay and would be constituted as rape.

"Ellie goes on a huge journey following this episode and I hope that our audience will see the effect this night has on her, but to Nick it was a great end to a good night and a lot of young people will be able to relate to that."

How did you get into scriptwriting? And how does it feel to be writing the show you once starred in?

"I became a writer through acting as I started writing plays that I would perform in with Lena Kaur, another Hollyoaks alumni! I have so much love for this show and feel deeply invested in what happens to the characters.

"The mix of drama, comedy and great storytelling with some of the most brilliant characters on TV make it the best show to write. It's just such good fun. I love visiting Liverpool for writers' conferences as I get to see some of the old cast, and the crew haven't changed much at all. It's a magical place to work."

There are only a few of the old faces left, but is it strange writing for cast members you once acted alongside?

"I was pretty nervous to write for those characters! I'm a huge fan of Nancy and Darren, but found it a massive pressure to write the words for them as they're my friends! Luckily they're such well defined characters and always brilliantly executed by Jess and Ashley, they practically write themselves."

Are you still acting?

"I am still acting, so try to juggle both as much as possible. I've written a sitcom pilot which I'm filming this autumn and I've cast myself as the lead. Perks of the job!"

Digital Spy

Proving that Chester is one of the most dangerous cities in the UK to live in, Hollyoaks just revealed another potentially villainous player in the Channel 4 soap.

With David Easter's Mac Nightingale taking a tumble out the window of the Dog in the Pond, fans have been searching for clues about who his mystery assailant was.

Wednesday's (November 29) E4 first look episode revealed that it was his own daughter who gave him a shove.

In usual Hollyoaks fashion, it could've been anyone from the not-so-sleepy Chester town who did the deed, but Sophie Porley's Ellie was revealed as the pusher.

However, unlike most of the violent Oaks residents, Porley reassured fans that she is NOT about to become the next Silas Blissett.

Speaking to Radio Times, the actress discussed what was next for Ellie.

"She's doing it for the right reasons," said Porley. "Mac has behaved terribly and Ellie is always the gullible one, she loves her family so much but there have been many times I've wanted to shake her and say, 'Oh just wake up!'"

Asked whether she believed that someone like Ellie would be forced to snap by her father's actions, Porley defended the writers' decision.

"Mac has betrayed her and she's stuck up for him, she even gave him an alibi earlier in the week – I had so many tweets about that saying Ellie's an idiot!" Porley revealed.

"She was getting frustrated with him but he's still her dad and she had his back. She didn't want to believe any of the horrific things people were saying."

So, those hoping for another Clare Devine had better look elsewhere, as it looks like Ellie was just a girl pushed too far.

That being said, Porley did tease this isn't the end of the story for Ellie.

"It was a moment of madness so the family all rally together around her," promised Sophie. "But the aftermath is not happy. You'll have to wait and see what unfolds. But something else happens that might help take her mind off things…"

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