Interview Exclusive: Deep Dive with MJ Bassett Part One

Jeff Turner: Welcome to Action Reloaded, MJ. It is awesome to have you here.

MJ Bassett:
Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Jeff Turner:
You’ve had a diverse directing career—from high-intensity TV like Strike Back, which I want to talk to you about because I love Strike Back—and now on to Red Sonja. How would you describe your evolution as a filmmaker?

MJ Bassett:
Oh my goodness. My evolution as a filmmaker is somebody who mostly tries to stay employed. That’s the principal task in modern filmmaking—make sure you’ve got one gig.

But it also reflects bits of you, right? My first movie was a horror movie set in the trenches of World War I. If that doesn’t tell you everything about me—military, world-building, history, horror—you can see the antecedents of everything I’m interested in.

The only thing you don’t get from that is my passion for conservation and natural history. But my personal evolution has been reflected in my work. My first two movies were horror. My third was a big sword-and-sorcery fantasy. My fourth was another horror that didn’t really succeed. Then I moved into television, and my first TV was a military thriller—that’s where I found my home.

I’m a child of the ’80s video boom. I grew up on fantasy movies—Ray Harryhausen, then the ’80s fantasy run: Ladyhawke, Conan, Red Sonja, Beastmaster. They’re classics, though not all great, but they were all I had. Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings was amazing, but it wasn’t Tolkien’s full vision.

So I had to wait for fantasy filmmaking to catch up with what I imagined. Solomon Kane was me saying, “This is what fantasy should be: grounded, realistic, character-driven, gritty but still fun.” Red Sonja is the evolution of that.

In between, I did a lot of TV partly to keep working but also to explore things I loved. Strike Back was my happy place. Ash vs Evil Dead was crazy fun—Bruce Campbell chopping up deadites with a chainsaw hand, gallons of blood. I loved it.

What I probably can’t do is romantic comedy. I can do funny, but not romance. What I look for is the challenge: the physical stuff, the difficult stuff. I don’t want to be stuck in a studio against a green screen or LED wall. I like to be hands-on, like when I was making shorts and doing everything myself. I still do. Anyone who works with me will tell you I’m always involved, sometimes to the crew’s annoyance—helping with makeup, splattering blood, setting explosives, designing fights. I love the physicality of filmmaking.

Jeff Turner:
That’s brilliant. I love that you make movies where they’re actually set in real places, with practical stuff going on. Some movies are just shot in a gymnasium with green screens. I don’t know how you can immerse yourself in that.

MJ Bassett:
Yeah. But these days, dragging a crew across the planet is expensive. Studios look for the path of least resistance. And a lot of actors don’t want to be in muddy trenches, rained on, in a Czech winter with me.

On Solomon Kane, I tied James Purefoy to a crucifix, rained on him, and dropped him in six inches of mud. On Red Sonja, there’s a sequence with a burning forest in the rain—no CG. That was 100% practical. We built a forest, filled it with gas lines, set fire to it, and walked into it.

Poor Matilda—an amazing warrior—had to be in skimpy armor in freezing Bulgarian winter, soaked in thousands of liters of water, sword fighting at 4 a.m. Brutal, but that’s practical filmmaking. People assume fire is CGI, but no—we built that forest from trees cut down by the Bulgarian Forestry Commission, drilled gas lines into them, set them alight, and kept fighting. After take 20, those trees wanted to burn for real. We had to keep putting them out.

Jeff Turner:
I have to say, one of the main things that attracted me to Red Sonja was Philip Winchester. From Strike Back to The Player and other projects, you and Philip always deliver. What makes him such a great fit for your storytelling?

MJ Bassett:
A couple of things. First, Philip’s just a genuinely kind, decent human being. I like working with nice people. Second, he’s physically one of the most capable actors I’ve ever worked with. His military ability, his physical control, his willingness to throw himself into anything—it’s incredible.

On Strike Back, he and Sullivan would do whatever was needed. “I’m gonna set this Jeep on fire and crash it into a building.” They’d say, “Yeah, we’ll do that.” Of course, the stunt team was there keeping things safe, but Phil was always game.

He’s also a trained actor. He can carry heavy emotional scenes, not just action. In Endangered Species, he played a slightly befuddled, incapable father figure—completely against type—and delivered brilliantly.

I first cast him years ago in a horror movie that collapsed, but we stayed friends. Later I gave him a role in Solomon Kane. Then when I was struggling after Silent Hill: Revelation didn’t work, he gave me a lifeline with Strike Back. He talked to producers about me, they’d seen Solomon Kane, and I got the job. So we’ve supported each other.

And honestly, if I have a job, Philip has a job. That’s the deal.

Jeff Turner:
There’s always been talk of a Strike Back movie with Philip and Sullivan returning. Would you be interested in directing?

MJ Bassett:
I’ve written the script. It exists. Jack Lothian and I came up with the story. It’s about Scott and Stonebridge years later—analogue soldiers in a digital world. We both did passes on it and really liked it.

Sky Movies were interested at one point, but then their department closed. The script is sitting there. The boys know about it. The production company is engaged. It just needs the right magic to come together.

In my head, I’ve got a three-movie cycle. Proper, old-school action with those guys.

Jeff Turner:
I’ll be honest—I didn’t like the new Strike Back after Legacy. I was so attached to Stonebridge. It was like when I tried Game of Thrones. Took me five and a half seasons to finally like it.

MJ Bassett:
(Laughs) That’s a long romance.

It’s not for everybody. I was involved in rebooting Strike Back with that first season of the Cinemax run. I helped put the cast together. I loved those guys. But my Strike Back will always be the Scott and Stonebridge years. That chemistry was magic.

Phil and Sully didn’t always get on—they had very different approaches. Sully’s a wild Australian. Phil’s a sensible American playing British. But that friction made the partnership great.

And by the way, I didn’t cast them. They were already in place when I arrived as a guest director. But I saw the magic and leaned into it. My plan was always: “Let’s make a James Bond movie every week.”

I’ll proudly say—and it sounds arrogant, but it’s true—I think Strike Back was the best action show on television. Not the biggest audience, but everyone who saw it loved it.

Jeff Turner:
It was known for its authenticity too. Did you have operators on set guiding things?

MJ Bassett:
Completely. We had a permanent military adviser, plus local operators wherever we filmed. A lot of crew were ex-military too.

When I did The Terminal List recently, it was wall-to-wall SEALs, Marines, Deltas. Written by a former SEAL, starring Chris Pratt who takes it all very seriously. That was absolute authenticity.

On Strike Back, we wanted authenticity but also entertainment. We cracked more jokes. The balance made it accessible.

We trained the actors hard. I trained with them. I wasn’t interested in target accuracy—I can fix that in the edit. I wanted them to move like real soldiers, clear jams, handle weapons properly. We used real blanks, tens of thousands of rounds. Blanks jam constantly, so I insisted the actors clear them in character and keep going.

We even took them to the King Abdullah Special Operations Training Center in Jordan for tactical work.

Of course, TV needs compromise—sometimes I’d tell Sully to step out of cover so the camera could see him. He’d say, “But I’d get my head blown off.” And I’d say, “Don’t worry—I’ll make it look like you wouldn’t.” That’s the balance.