Nicole Kassell

From the beginning of her career, Nicole Kassell showed herself to be a master of character-driven drama. In her debut feature "The Woodsman" (2004), Kassell and star Kevin Bacon fashioned a fascinating portrait of a recently-paroled child molester struggling with both re-entry into society, and his own unspeakable urges.

Meanwhile, for the small screen Kassell directed several installments of the critically-acclaimed "The Killing" (AMC 2011-13; Netflix, 2014), including an acclaimed change-up episode that focused on the personal interactions of the show's police detective duo rather than its crime procedural plot.

Kassell attended film school at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she became interested in adapting "The Woodsman," a play by Steven Fechter. Despite having only short films to her credit, she assembled a cast that included Bacon, his wife Kyra Sedgwick, and rapper-turned-actor Mos Def. The camaraderie of the small, low-budget production. "The Woodsman" was released to widespread critical acclaim, and Kassell received her share of kudos, including a rave by Roger Ebert.

Kassell followed up this big-screen success by directing episodes of popular television series, mostly crime procedurals such as "Cold Case" (CBS 2003-2010) and "The Closer" (TNT 2005-2012), the latter reuniting her with Sedgwick. Unfortunately, Kassell's second feature, the oddball romantic comedy "A Little Bit of Heaven" (2011), starring Kate Hudson as a young woman who maintains a relentlessly sunny disposition even after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, earned largely poor reviews and did poorly at the box office.

Kassell's next television project, "The Killing," was better-received, although the series did suffer an audience backlash when the central mystery of the first season, the murder of small-town teen Rosie Larsen, was not solved in the season finale. After directing three episodes of "The Killing," Kassell went on to work on the television series "Suits" (USA 2011- ), "The Americans" (FX 2013- ) and "The Following" (Fox 2013-15), which reunited her with series star Kevin Bacon.