Plan B: ‘Ill Manors will be something different’

Plan B thinks he “has something” better than any other film director.

The British star – real name Ben Drew – has recently completed shooting his debut musical movie ‘Ill Manors’, and believes it will offer something unlike any other project, because he had next to no budget to make it.

Speaking at the announcement of the nominations for the Orange Wednesday Rising Star award at BAFTA, on which he is a jury member, he exclusively told BANG Showbiz: “Making a film on a small, small budget and with the small amount of time I had. I don’t know. You look at other directors and their first film they had a million pound budget, they don’t know what it’s like to do what I just did.

“I’ve got something over every other kind of director who has had money. I did four weeks on that film and I came out feeling like I did films for 10 years. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m glad I did it because it’s invaluable, the experience.”

The 27-year-old Londoner – who released semi-autobiographical album ‘The Defamation of Strickland Bank’ in 2010 - hopes to prove himself with his cinematic debut and he can earn money from it so he can be at his “creative best” and not have to worry about budgeting.

He said: “The only way I can be at my creative best is by not having to worry about money, because everything up until now, even the ‘Strickland Banks’ album, I had to worry about money, I had to budget everything. I just don’t wanna do that. I want a limitless set of tools. It will happen. I’ll prove myself.”

He also reveals he was “uncomfortable” when BAFTA first approached him about appearing on the jury for the Orange Wednesday Rising Star award.

He said: “I felt slightly uncomfortable about it, I guess I felt like I didn’t deserve to be here. Then I thought, ‘Why don’t I deserve to be here?’ I’ve just gone through an experience that I’m sure that a big percentage of directors haven’t gone through.”