An actor who plays a priest on the AMC drama The Walking Dead is facing drunken driving and drug charges after police say he was clocked going 172km/h on a Georgia highway.
Seth Gilliam, 46, was stopped shortly after 2am on Sunday on Georgia Highway 74 in the Peachtree City area, authorities said.
“The driver applied the brakes prior to passing my vehicle and was still travelling at 107mph [172km/h],” a Peachtree City police officer, who was in his patrol car and running radar, wrote in a report.
The speed limit on that stretch of highway is 55mph (88km/h.) It is not far from the set where much of the TV show is filmed in the nearby town of Senoia. Gilliam plays Father Gabriel on a drama that portrays survivors of a zombie apocalypse battling infected “walkers” and each other.
Gilliam told the officer he had three beers and a shot of alcohol, according to a police report. The actor’s eyes were “extremely bloodshot,” the report said.
Police say they noticed a strong odour of marijuana emanating from the Chevrolet Cruze, and found a marijuana joint inside a cigarette pack in the car.
Two representatives for the actor didn’t immediately return phone calls on Tuesday.
Gilliam faces charges of speeding, reckless driving, drug possession and drunken driving.
Gilliam is the second actor from The Walking Dead to face drunken driving charges in Peachtree City in the past three years.
Actor Scott Wilson, who played a farmer named Hershel Greene on the show, was arrested by Peachtree City police and charged with drunken driving after someone called 911 to report a Chrysler PT Cruiser driving erratically in August 2012.
