Seth Gilliam on AllMovie

The handsome supporting actor and S.U.N.Y. graduate Seth Gilliam is most recognizable from gritty crime dramas on HBO. He started acting in the early '90s with small roles in feature films, most notably in the comedy Mad Dog and Glory. Also appearing in made-for-TV movies, his first starring role was in Assault at West Point as Johnson Whittaker, the first African-American cadet admitted to West Point. His next sizable role was in the Merchant Ivory production Jefferson in Paris, the story of Thomas Jefferson's affair with the 15-year-old slave girl Sally Hemmings. After appearing in a few scenes in Courage Under Fire and Starship Troopers, he made a successful move to HBO as Officer Clayton Hughes in the prison drama Oz. A few years later, he played Detective Ellis Carver in the crime series The Wire. He returned to feature filmmaking for the chest-baring role of Marcus in Punks, a comedy about the black gay male scene in West Hollywood. In 2002, he appeared in the third part of Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity: Three Portraits.