Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

A relative newcomer, 20-year-old Ben Smith takes on the leading role of Frankie Nash, a young lad from Manchester, who ends up in the dock in deep trouble.

Laddish cheek and exuberance might be alright on a night out at home, but when Frankie joins The British Army with his best mate, Peter McShane, they have to grow-up fast.

Once deployed to Afghanistan, they learn not obeying orders has deadly consequences and the enemy is not necessarily who you think they are.

A born and bred Londoner, Ben Smith's youthful good looks belie his 13 years of professional acting experience – a career he came to by chance when his mum suggested he join Sharon Harris's drama workshops to help bring him out of his shell. He's not looked back and has been seen regularly on television since he was seven.

Probably known for his role as Damien Trotter in Only Fools and Horses, Ben is also recognisable as Teg from EastEnders and he played Clive Owen's fictional son, Sam Tanner, in the hit television thriller Second Sight.
More recently, he's appeared in Teachers, Doctor Who, The Bill, Skins and the Bafta-winning Misfits.

Clearly not an actor to rest on his laurels, he says he was desperate to get the role of Frankie, describing Jimmy McGovern's script as genius.

"I knew I had to get Frankie but the audition process gets more nerve-racking as you get older – the pool of talent is so much bigger and better. You have to keep raising your game. I always feel privileged to be up for the same roles as up there trained RADA actors!

"It's a seriously challenging part to play about a young lad who has to make impossible moral choices once he's a soldier. He wants to be loyal to his best mate who is a championship boxer – who he's always been two steps behind, as well as do right by his comrades and everyone back home.

"The choice he makes changes the course of his life forever. Frankie starts a boy but by the end of the story he's definitely a man.

"A mate told me that RSJ Films were looking for a Manc for Frankie; so I put on the accent the whole way through the audition and it must have worked. But I didn't want to risk anything; so didn't actually speak in my normal London accent until the read-through. I don't think I was sussed, but I'm still in complete shock that I got Frankie – it's the best job of in my life."

Montcliffe Quarry, Bolton, stood in for Afghanistan and the weather was on the side of filming with blisteringly, hot sunshine with bright blue skies. Ben describes acting the high-octane scenes staged at the quarry, involving skirmishes and engagement with the Taliban, as completely terrifying.

"It was unbelievably noisy and scary. In this scene we were all firing blanks and everyone was shouting at once. I felt petrified. It brought it home to me how imperative it is to return fire and how frightening suddenly being under attack is."

For Ben, director David Blair's attention to detail and authenticity puts him in a class above all others.
"It's amazing how the art team created our camp in war-worn Afghanistan and our training in the use of firearms gave us focus, but it was David who showed us how to feel and 100% believe we were living on the frontline and finding out fast what it really is to be a man.

"It was mind-blowing being with so many real ex- soldiers who played our extras. You could see they were the real deal. On the first day the way they carried themselves said it all - that they'd been squaddies, and we were just actors. We had to learn fast and adapt to wearing heavy body army, genuine uniforms and handle our weapons to be as believable as them.

"The weather was unbearably hot, but we wanted to stay in all our kit in between takes like them. I kept thinking this no-where near as hot as they've known it to be. We had to show the same bottle as these lads and get on with it.

"When they told us their stories I have to be honest and say I found it really disturbing that people had tried to kill them out there, sometimes within hours of them arriving. They said you have to have a positive mentality and be able to laugh off the worst case scenario otherwise you'll fail as a soldier.

"A genuine comradeship grew between us all. It's brought home again to me what an amazing job British troops do in very difficult conditions," says Ben.

"One of my mates from school is on a tour now with the Para regiment and every time he comes home, I see changes in him and can't begin to get my head around what's he's been through. But what's for sure is it's made him a man, and I don't feel his equal."

Returning to the film and his colleagues Ben says: "Ben Batt, who is my mate Peter McShane, is totally brilliant in the part and the scenes I had with Bob Pugh, who is Peter's screen Dad, had me on the edge.
"Mackenzie Crook has been my idol for since The Office; so working with him was fantastic. We did have some laughs filming – you need to when the story's so intense!

"There's no denying that Mackenzie plays Buckley with total conviction: he makes you believe Buckley is right to go all out to protect his men. In the scene when Buckley justifies his actions I'm with him – thinking 'yes, Buckley's undeniably right'. But then I pull back and think from Frankie's perspective and then Buckley's methods are unforgiveable."

Summing up Ben says, "Finding right and wrong in this story is not easy. It's about believable people in extreme circumstances, and for me Frankie's story has been an unforgettable experience.