‘The Walking Dead’ Star Seth Gilliam Looks Back at Gabriel’s Character Arc Before Series Finale (Exclusive)

The series finale of The Walking Dead airs on AMC Sunday, Nov. 20, and fans are wondering how the show will end. Seth Gilliam, who plays Father Gabriel in the series, is one of the veteran cast members as he’s been on the show since Season 5. PopCulture.com attended a roundtable session with a few cast members and asked Gilliam how much he enjoyed Gabriel’s character arc over the last seven seasons. 

“I really enjoyed it,” Gilliam told PopCulture.com and the other media members at the roundtable session. “It was a fantastic challenge and kind of like yearly payoff playing Gabriel. Because there were so many changes. Either subtle or outright drastic changes to his nature over the course of the last, I guess it’s been seven seasons now. And it was not something that I foresaw. I’ve said before, I thought that he was walker bait. I thought he was dead in three episodes. I thought, ‘This man is not long for this world.’ I had not read the comics. 

“So I didn’t have any history or knowledge about the character. But I thought that he was a plot device to get somebody more important killed. And so all of the different changes and platforms that he’s been able to climb over these past seasons has really been extremely exciting to play and I feel very, very fortunate to be the guy who got to take the ride with him.”  

When Gabriel is first introduced, he struggles with the apocalyptic world. He left his congregation to die and is very reluctant to fight. But as Gabriel appears in more episodes and more seasons, he becomes comfortable with himself, leading him to be one of the group’s strongest fighters. 

Gilliam was asked by a reporter what was Gabriel’s defining moment in the series. “I think it was when Father Gabriel lost his vision,” he said. “Not fully, but in his right eye. It seems to coincide with him seeing things a lot clearer. And being a little more devout in his belief in himself and his decision-making process and his courage level and his conviction levels. I think he went partially blind and gained a bit more insight into himself.”