Meeting Seth Gilliam

The normal font is Carola speaking. The Italic font is Liv speaking. And the bold font is a quote of Seth Gilliam's Q&A

Seth Gilliam was born on november 5th, 1968 in New York. He is best known for his roles in series like:  "Oz" (Clayton Hughes), "The Wire" (Ellis Carver), "Teen Wolf" (Dr. Alan Deaton) and "The Walking Dead" (Father Gabriel), but also for movies like "Starship Troopers"  (Private Sugar Watkins) and "Courage under Fire" (Sgt. Steven Altameyer). He loves his work in movies and television series, but his true passion is acting on stage.

 

At Dutch Comic Con there were constantly people at Seth's desk. I was doubting what to do. Go for a photo op or an autograph. And when? Now, later, tomorrow? We decided just to start with attending the Q&A of Seth Gilliam. That's a nice way to start. At the Q&A, there were mainly questions asked about "The Walking Dead" and "Teen Wolf". And also a question about "The Wire". We got some interesting information :).

One of the questions was: If you could be any other character on "The Walking Dead", who would you wanna be?

And this was his answer:

 

 (SPOILER ALERT)

            "I think Carl would be a fun character to play, you know. I mean it would be

                   hard for me to play 30 years younger than I am. But aside from that, that

                        character has like...you know....He's a kid in the zombie apocalypse. What is

                            that like to play? The horrible things he had to do and change into. Having

                        to kill his mother to deliver, like, his sister..you know. That's intense hardcore

                                stuff! Getting shot in the face?!? In the eye?!? You know that's hardcore stuff!

                 Carl would be fun to play, yeah."

 

           (END OF SPOILER)

 

 

Fun Fact : When asked this question last year Michael Cudlitz said he would choose to be Judith .

 

Seth Gilliam also talked about pranks on set and how Norman Reedus tackles him on the set of "The Walking Dead" (Yeah, try to picture that!) The question was about funny things that happened on set and his answer was the following:

 

"Norman seems to be able to get away with everything he wants

to do. So far in the time that I've worked with him, he has tackled me four times.

We were doing the scene in the barn, before the storm comes and the

walkers try to get into the barn. And I kept walking over to Andy, 'cause I

wanted to talk to him about the scene. And every time I got close, Norman

would tackle me. So it happened three times in a row and then I started 

looking out for him, like you know, Oh he's not in the barn, let me go talk

to Andy and then I'd get tackled from behind.

And I was like: Well,I would love to be comfortable enough to tackle

him back, but he works out. So ....I didn't."

 

For "The Wire", he spoke about the neighborhood they filmed in and the authenticity it gave to the series. 

 

       "They let the people who actually lived there know we were shooting. And

then in turn, the directors and the executive producers saw that these 

people were fantastic characters. So quite a few of them wound

up being in the show, you know with a line here and a line there.

And I think it helped for the authenticity of the show and it helped

to ground it in the world of Baltimore very much. You know when I first used

to watch 'The Wire' and I had the scripts so I could read them,

I had to watch it with closed captioning on in the bottom of the screen.

Because I just wasn't understanding the slang, because I'm from New 

York, which is very different from Baltimore. I had to have people

explaining it to me and I think part of that is because they were using

people from the actual neighbourhoods we were in. And so they brought 

that authenticity yeah.."

 

When he was asked if "The Wire" changed his perspective on the drugs problems, he talked about how he thinks about the program that was used to handle it at that time :

 

 

 "I think it was designed to keep people down. And I think it

was misguided. I think it doesn't work and it dehumanizes 

people. I think there are far better ways to deal with a

drug epidemic than to imprison people. I think it's wrong,

but I had that perspective going into 'The Wire'. 'The Wire'

just helped...because I was working with people much 

smarter than me....to illuminate to me the different

politics of how and why it goes down. I just  knew that basically

it just seemed wrong."

 

And the last thing I want to highlight in the Q&A on Saturday is the way Seth looks towards humanity:

 

"You know I think I'm a lot more hopeful than 'The Walking Dead' is 

about humanity...you know...It seems like 'The Walking Dead'

is uhm...you know it's a very dark, brutal show and I would like to  

hope that if our societal structures went away tomorrow, that people 

would be better to each other and for each other and with each other.

A little bit of that hope dwindles every day,, but I still try to mantain it 

because I think that it's possible. And I think that it's a positive way that

I can affect the world around me, by not giving up. And I think that

is what people who have given up, want you to do as well."

 

My question to Seth Gilliam was: Who was your favorite other prisoner in Oz? Yeahh.. I decided this Q&A needed a little bit of Oz :). And he gave the exact right answer. He said his favourite was Adebesi. (I earlier already wrote about Adewale, the actor who plays Adebesi). Liv filmed me while asking my question. It's so fun to hear! I remember just having this big smile on my face while he was answering. It was interesting for me to hear that Adewale would never tell how he kept the hat always at the same place (at the side of his head). He would never tell any of the cast.

 Check out the video of my question to Seth Gilliam here:

My conclusion probably won't come as a surprise to you! I loved meeting Seth Gilliam! Nothing to add to that. Although on screen he does not always play the most loveable characters, in real life he is absolutely fabulous. Very normal and down to earth. Great guy! 

 

Cheerio!