Gone are the days when network publicists ran from newsagent to newsagent buying every copy of TV Week they could find, then taking them back to the office to clip out the voting coupons and fill them in by hand. These days you need to register your phone number before you can vote online; short of buying a stack of burner phones, hacking the vote has become almost impossible.

Loading

So it is that Ten’s publicity team has squeezed me into a packed schedule of interviews in the final days of the Logies race. Voting in the popular categories is open until the telecast starts at 7pm on Sunday, so every last appearance in the media and on the socials could help.

When I arrive, our photographer is already snapping away. Leong is a fashion designer’s dream, always willing to play dress-ups. Coupled with the warmth and empathy she projects on screen, and a tendency to tear up when contestants share their food “journeys”, it has helped make her the standout among the three judges who took over when Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan left in 2019.

She’ll be wearing vintage Collette Dinnigan on Sunday, but for this shoot she’s opted for “oxblood patent leather, because why not”.

It could come in handy for drinking red wine, I imagine.

“You just get a Chux and you’re fine. So for long sessions and unpredictable nights out – or, I guess, working in my office – this would be quite useful for a quick clean-up.”

Given the range of designer clothes she cycles through on the show, and the vast amount of eating the job demands, splatter must be a real occupational hazard. What’s the secret to avoiding an expensive mess?

“Small bites.”

There is a whiteboard in the wardrobe department, she reveals, with the names of the three hosts, and a running tally.

Loading

“It starts at the beginning of the season, and you get a point for each splatter, and whoever ends up having the most points at the end of the season has to cook for the wardrobe department,” she says. “It’s almost always Andy, but we all have our off days. There was a recent episode where we were cracking crab and there was just carnage.”

Win or lose, Sunday night could get messy – “isn’t it a tradition that you’re still drunk if you’re doing press the next day?” she asks – but she’s determined not to get ahead of herself on that score.

“I know it sounds like a cliché to say it’s a thrill just to be nominated, but I’ve been doing this for half a second in comparison to some incredible people who have been plugging away at this for decades,” she says. “It was very unexpected, it’s an amazing class of people to be associated with, and it is a thrill.”