David Morrissey has revealed how he almost had a close encounter with a deadly snake while working on The Walking Dead.

The British actor has played The Governor in the last three seasons of the hit zombie series and admitted when he first arrived on location in Georgia, co-star Andrew Lincoln had to prepare him for the everyday dangers of life in the Deep South.

David explained: “I play golf with Andrew Lincoln, and my golf ‘aint great and my first shot went straight into the rough quite far, and I started walking in and Andrew went, ‘Be careful of the snakes.’ And I went, ‘Yeah!’ and he went, ‘No, be careful of the snakes!’ And then I saw a sign saying ‘Be careful of the snakes.’ And I was like, Oh my God! We ‘aint in Kansas anymore!”

But the 51-year-old actor had a very different experience working on sci fi show Extant, which is filmed at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.

David Morrissey and Halle Berry in Extant
David Morrissey and Halle Berry in Extant (CBS)

David joins Halle Berry in the second season of the Steven Spielberg thriller about astronaut Molly (Halle) who in the last series returned from a space mission to find herself pregnant with an alien which has now escaped into the world.

David plays General Tobias Shepherd, a US military officer and ex-lover of Molly, and he admits he got quite starstruck working with Halle.

David Morrissey as General Tobias Shepherd in Extant
David Morrissey as General Tobias Shepherd in Extant (CBS)

He said: “She was fantastic. I, like everybody else, get starstruck, the day I don’t shoot me, because I admire people in my profession. And she was somebody I really admired, because she’s a real risk taker. The day I walked on set I was nervous, I really was, and she’s a producer of this show as well. And she couldn’t have been nicer to me. She really put me at ease, ad she knew my work, which is mad but it’s nice that she did, and we got on well.

“She’s a really special lady.”

Extant season two is available on Amazon Prime from Thursday, July 2.