Entertainment Weekly sat down with Seth Gilliam, an awesome new cast member and The Wire alumni, who will be playing the new Season 5 character Father Gabriel Stokes. EW revealed the photo above and interviewed Gilliam about how he landed the part, whether he read the comics, and what it’s been like to join the show!
EW: Why don’t you start by telling me about the casting process and how you ended up on this show as Father Gabriel.
SETH GILLIAM: I actually did not realize I was reading for the role of Father Gabriel during the casting process. The sides were for a school guidance counselor named Michael, who had an issue with a couple of his students. I had not seen the show before I was cast on the show. So I just thought, Okay, I guess they’ve discovered some guy who’s holed up at a school or something like that and was carrying around this horrible exchange that he had with his students. [Laughs]
That’s hilarious. So when were you informed about whom your character actually was?
I got a call from Gale Anne Hurd after the offer was made to me to explain who I would be playing. And that was about maybe a week after I had auditioned.
So once you found out about this character, did you go and read the comic book to familiarize yourself, or did you just say, Hey, I want to approach this TV version fresh and not worry about that?
I only read the comic book where Father Gabriel was introduced, which I think was episode 61 in the comics. I didn’t read anything before that, and I haven’t read anything after that. I discovered from reading about the show that often times characters’ names and journeys are kind of crisscrossed and mismatched, so I thought if I did read too much I might be giving myself a lot of information that would be useless, or just outright wrong. So I figured, like with everything, I’d just take the script and try to fill him out the best I possibly can.
Favorite Quote: “I thought, well it’s a zombie show. It’s a show about zombies. And then I watched and I was like, this show is not about zombies at all, really.” THAT’S WHAT WE SAID!!
Yeah, welcome to 2010 when we all sat down for the first episode and were blown away!
“Shoot….there’s nothing on TV….I’m tired of flippin’….guess I’ll park it right here where this zombie show is coming on….more zombies, moan, groan, whatever……………. oh DAMN, THAT WAS SO FREAKIN’ AWESOME!!! What’s the name of this show?!! What channel is this?! What time did this come on? Oh, let me write this on the dry erase board for next Sunday!!”
Looks completely OK. I don’t mind any little changes. I can’t wait for S5!
Looks great, a Gabriel that looks more kick ass than his comic book counter part.
You think this one will be more agressive?
Yeah a think so, the actor looks like he can handle himself, never saw the wire, but I could see him being a lot more aggressive / hands on.
I never saw The Wire either, but yeah, I was thinking that he’s gonna be more of a fighter & maybe a little prayer on the side!
damn ! I like the avatar looks really cool.
Thanks! My eyes are crossed & my wrist is numb. This one’s gonna stay a while.
Yes! I can see them giving this Gabriel scenes of killing walkers or even fighting scenes!!!
I would like to see the teacher holed up at a school. He would have all these kids mucking around and as punishment he would either feed the dead with them or the living.
I’ve seen him in Teen Wolf and since I hate that show so much for its terrible everything I’m not at all happy about this. Obviously I’m biased. I can just see his Teen Wolf character showing through too much in the future because his acting is pretty much always the same.
Never seen that so I guess I’m lucky
Dude’s really depriving himself of some great reading material if he’s going to do nothing but read the bits with Father Gabriel.
A pity, really.
I was thinking, “How can a person do that?!” But then, I was thinking that if I was part of the cast, never read the comic, & probably heard the history of character deaths, I’d balk at reading the comic. Still, he read maybe 1 issue & was thinking everything else could be useless info…like getting to know the other characters that he’s gonna be involved with. We’re also talking about a guy who never sat down to watch the show either. Dude might be one can shy of a six pack.