Jayson Warner Smith - Walking Dead / Actor

Best known for his recurring roles of Wendall Jelks on Sundance TV’s Rectify and Gavin on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Jayson has recently been working all over the Southeast from Wilmington, NC to New Orleans to Galveston. With roles on Amazon’s One Mississippi, CBS’ NCIS:New Orleans, FOX’s Sleepy Hollow, CW’s The Vampire Diaries and in the films, American Made, Christine, The Birth of a Nation, The Book of Love, 99 Homes and Mississippi Grind, Jayson has been busy working with wonderful film makers and show-runners such as Doug Liman, Nate Parker, Antonio Campos, Ramin Bahrani, Ray McKinnon, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden. He also found time to star in the films Heavy Water and Northfield. Both are small budgeted high-end Atlanta produced independent films.

Since Rectify‘s debut in 2013, Jayson has become a bit of a fixture at the Sundance Film Festival. Attending three out of the last four years representing not only Rectify but two films in 2015 and two again in 2016.

Other recent work includes I Saw the Light, Anchorman II,  42, Being Mary Jane, Footloose (2011), Coma and other projects and plays. Jayson has shared set time with some Hollywood heavyweights such as Tom Cruise, Armie Hammer, Maisie Williams, Michael Shannon, Andrew Garfield, Ryan Reynolds, Ben Mendelsohn, Laura Dern, James Woods, Lauren Ambrose, Cuba Gooding Jr., Demi Moore, and David Duchovny.

Atlanta remains his home and he lives in Sandy Springs with his wife Lisa. Jayson teaches acting at The Robert Mello Studio in Atlanta. He is repped by Alexander White in Atlanta.

 

What's your favorite activity off the strip?

I would have to say playing craps at the giant table at the Horseshoe in the old part of Vegas. That was my favorite thing.

 

What's your favorite activity on the strip?

Going to see Cirque Du Soleil's "O "show at the Bellagio.

 

What's your favorite Vegas restaurant?

I've only been to one really good restaurant there and that's Wolfgang Puck's place. It was quite nice.

 

What's your favorite Vegas business?

Vegas business, I have no answer for that. I'm only there to party.

 

Do you have a funny Vegas story you can share?

Yes, I went there for a bachelor party, the last bachelor party that I ever went to in Vegas. After that, I've just politely started saying no to people. It got to be too much. We've been up for over 24 hours, myself and my two best friends and another guy. We're at McCarran International waiting on our flights to go back home to our different locations. One of my friends, who's just a couple of years younger than I am, suddenly says, "Man, I'm really cold. I'm just cold. I may be having a heart attack, man. I don't know what's going on." "Really, dude?" He looked pretty rough. Anyway, we made a few of inquiries and sure enough, here comes a couple of EMTs and they go over to him and are examining him. He's just laying in the corner of the waiting area. After a few minutes of poking and prodding and talking to him and doing things, the EMTs walk over to myself and my other buddy and they say, "We've looked at your friend and we've decided that he has a super hangover. He's going to be fine."