M. J. Bassett
M. J. Bassett is a British film director whose first ambition was to heal injured animals on the African continent. That ambition never materialized, and the years between that childhood dream and her film career passed through some unexpected terrain. When she finally had a screenplay to her name, multiple studios offered to buy it. She refused every offer, insisting on directing the film herself. That act of determination became the first feature of a career spanning more than two decades of genre cinema and television. What drove that determination, and where the career it launched eventually went, is the subject of this documentary.
Adams Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire is where Bassett spent her formative years, and where she later recalled a 'safe, unremarkable childhood'. Her strongest enthusiasm was not for the classroom but for the natural world. Poor grades foreclosed her original plans, and at 16 she left school without finishing her studies. Her next step was not another school but a job assisting a wildlife filmmaker. Over 18 months, she learned the basics of photography and the practical mechanics of how films get made. That apprenticeship led her back to school to sit her A-Levels.
Returning for A-Levels, Bassett was aiming this time at a Zoology degree. Film still was not the plan. While studying, she wrote letters to television producers across the industry, looking for work as a nature presenter. One of those letters reached Janet Street-Porter. Not long after that contact, Bassett found herself presenting on Get Fresh, a children's programme where her role covered the science and nature segments.
As the presenting work slowed and dried up, Bassett concluded she wanted to make films. The career change carried real financial risk. She spent a year on Children's ITV animating and voicing a puppet character named Scally the Dog. The steady income gave her time to think the career change through. When that work ended, she left presenting behind and began making short films of her own.
Several short films followed, including a 16mm piece that reached broadcast television. During the same period, Bassett was taking on film crew work. She served as Electronic Press Kit producer on Shooting Fish in 1997 and EPK director on Waking Ned in 1998. Three episodes of the television drama Bugs, also in 1998, gave her her first directing credit on a full television production. Throughout all of this, she was writing feature-length scripts as calling cards for producers.
No Man's Land was the screenplay that finally broke through. It generated serious interest from multiple studios, every one of which made an offer to purchase the script. Bassett refused them all. She would not sell unless she was also allowed to direct the film. After a period of years, one production company agreed to those terms. The screenplay was retitled Deathwatch.
Deathwatch premiered in 2002, earning Bassett the Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver. Nominations from the International Fantasy Film Award, the Neuchatel Narcisse Award, and the Sitges Maria Award followed. Wilderness arrived four years later as her second horror feature. Its release deepened the cult following her debut had begun. Solomon Kane, a dark fantasy project she would complete in 2009, was the next horizon.
Solomon Kane arrived in 2009 and moved Bassett into a different kind of filmmaking. Dark fantasy, not horror, was the new territory. The film won the Fantasporto Audience Jury Award.
Silent Hill: Revelation, released in 2012, brought her to video game adaptation. The film drew a nomination for the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Film. With four features now behind her, she shifted her primary attention to the television work that had been running alongside her film career. Strike Back was waiting.
Strike Back was Bassett's most sustained commitment to any single project. Between 2012 and 2018, she directed 15 episodes of the action drama. She also worked on Da Vinci's Demons and The Player during those years. Ash vs Evil Dead, running from 2015 to 2016, added four credits, and Power, which ran through 2018, added four more. Altered Carbon gave her a two-episode assignment in 2019. Inside Man: Most Wanted, a feature film she also directed that year, ran alongside the television work.
In 2018, she directed single episodes of Taken, Iron Fist, and Nightflyers. Motherland: Fort Salem followed in 2020. Reacher and The Terminal List both appeared in 2022, and Quantum Leap in 2023. The Equalizer added a 2024 credit. Both FUBAR and two episodes of NCIS: Tony and Ziva arrived in 2025. Two of the screenplays Bassett developed during these years were written in close collaboration with her daughter Isabel.
In 2017, Bassett came out as trans. She has two daughters and a son. The writing partnership she built with her daughter Isabel yielded two produced features. Rogue, released in 2020, and Endangered Species, released in 2021, are both co-credited to them as screenwriters.
In 2025, Bassett returned to theatrical features with Red Sonja, a project that had been through significant changes before she arrived. It had been reported that Hannah John-Kamen and Joey Soloway had both departed the film before Bassett came aboard. She directed the feature and rewrote the screenplay, working from Tasha Huo's original script. Red Sonja, FUBAR, and her two episodes of NCIS: Tony and Ziva all land in 2025, a year in which she is active across both features and television simultaneously.
Common questions
Who is M. J. Bassett?
M. J. Bassett is a British film and television writer, director, and producer. She is known for directing the cult horror films Deathwatch and Wilderness, the dark fantasy Solomon Kane, the video game adaptation Silent Hill: Revelation, and long-running television series including Strike Back. She came out as trans in 2017.
What was M. J. Bassett's first feature film as director?
M. J. Bassett's first feature film as director was Deathwatch, released in 2002. She wrote the screenplay under the title No Man's Land and refused multiple studio offers to purchase it unless she was also allowed to direct. Deathwatch won the Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver.
How many episodes of Strike Back did M. J. Bassett direct?
M. J. Bassett directed 15 episodes of Strike Back between 2012 and 2018, making it the most sustained single commitment of her television career. She also worked across the series as a director, writer, and producer.
When did M. J. Bassett come out as transgender?
M. J. Bassett came out as trans in 2017. She was born Michael J. Bassett and had built a substantial career in film and television by that point. She has two daughters and a son.
What children's television work did M. J. Bassett do before her directing career?
Before her directing career, M. J. Bassett presented on the children's programme Get Fresh, covering science and nature segments, following an introduction through Janet Street-Porter. She also spent a year on Children's ITV animating and voicing a puppet character named Scally the Dog.
Did M. J. Bassett co-write screenplays with her daughter Isabel?
M. J. Bassett co-wrote the screenplays for Rogue, released in 2020, and Endangered Species, released in 2021, with her daughter Isabel. Both films credit them as co-writers.
All sources
7 references cited across the entry
- 6MagazineMegan Fox's mercenary takes on a lethal lion in trailer for action movie RogueClark Collis — 20 July 2020
- 7Red Sonja: How M.J. Bassett broke the reboot out of development hellCody Hamman — 2023-01-11