Driftwood Beach

Driftwood Beach is a distinctive section of coastline at the northern end of Jekyll Island in Glynn County, Georgia, United States. The beach forms part of Georgia’s chain of barrier islands and is known for the remains of a maritime forest exposed by decades of coastal erosion. Atlantic currents, storms and saltwater have removed the soil from around the roots of live oaks, pines and cedars, causing entire trees to fall onto the beach. Their bleached trunks, exposed roots and twisted branches now extend across the sand and into the tidal zone. Despite its name, much of the wood did not drift to the beach but consists of trees that originally grew where the shoreline once stood. The position and appearance of Driftwood Beach continue to change as the northern end of Jekyll Island erodes, and the area commonly identified by that name has gradually moved southwards from the coastline known to residents during the mid-twentieth century.

Driftwood Beach has appeared in The View from Pompey’s Head (1955), The Walking Dead (2010–2022), The Menu (2022) and The Color Purple (2023). Its exposed trees, roots, shallow water and isolated shoreline have represented the coast of a fictional South Carolina community, the post-apocalyptic Oceanside settlement, the private island occupied by an exclusive restaurant and both the Georgia coast and an African shoreline.

In The View from Pompey’s Head (1955), Driftwood Beach contributes to the coastal setting of Pompey’s Head, a fictional South Carolina town based on the communities and barrier islands of coastal Georgia. New York lawyer Anson Page returns to his childhood home to investigate missing royalty payments owed to the ageing author Garvin Wales. His investigation brings him back into contact with Dinah Blackford Higgins, the woman he loved before leaving the South. Beach scenes accompany Anson’s renewed relationship with Dinah and his visits to the Wales family’s waterfront estate, where he gradually uncovers the secret surrounding Garvin’s family background. Production records confirm the use of Driftwood Beach, although the film divided its coastal material among Jekyll Island, Sea Island and St. Simons Island. The surviving documentation does not identify which individual beach shots were recorded at each island. Coastal erosion has also moved the section commonly known as Driftwood Beach approximately a mile south of its mid-twentieth-century position, meaning that the precise 1955 filming area may no longer resemble the present public beach.

In The Walking Dead (2010–2022), Driftwood Beach represents the shoreline beside the Oceanside community in two episodes. In the seventh-season episode “Swear” (2016), Tara Chambler falls from a bridge during a walker attack and eventually washes ashore on the beach. Rachel prepares to kill her in accordance with Oceanside’s policy towards strangers, but Cyndie intervenes and drags Tara away from the water. Believing Tara to be unconscious, Cyndie leaves her behind one of the fallen trees with water, dried fish and a spear. Tara has been pretending and follows Cyndie through the woods to the concealed Oceanside settlement. Driftwood Beach returned in the tenth-season premiere, “Lines We Cross” (2019), for the opening combat exercise involving survivors from Oceanside, Alexandria, Hilltop and the Kingdom. Judith kills a waterlogged walker caught among the driftwood before joining the formation. Aaron then commands fighters equipped with shields, bows, spears and melee weapons as Ezekiel and Jerry release groups of walkers from a wrecked boat. Later activity on the beach includes the discovery of a Whisperer mask among objects washed ashore, raising fears that Alpha’s group has returned. The second filming period lasted approximately a week and a half and had to be moved along the beach to avoid active sea-turtle nests.

In The Menu (2022), Driftwood Beach forms part of Hawthorn Island, the private destination occupied by Chef Julian Slowik’s exclusive restaurant. After arriving by boat, Margot, Tyler and the other invited diners are led across the island by maître d’ Elsa. The group walks along the beach among the exposed trunks and roots while being introduced to the isolated environment in which Hawthorn produces and gathers its ingredients. The strange shoreline helps establish the island as beautiful but inaccessible before the increasingly violent meal begins. Hawthorn Island was assembled from several Georgia locations rather than filmed on one real island. Driftwood Beach supplies the coastal walk, while the departure dock was filmed beside the Savannah Convention Center, other island grounds were filmed around Hampton Island and Savannah, the restaurant exterior was constructed on Tybee Island and most of the dining-room interior was built on a soundstage.

In The Color Purple (2023), Driftwood Beach appears during scenes involving the relationship between Celie and her younger sister Nettie. Young Celie and Nettie run and sing together among the fallen trees and along the shoreline, creating an early image of their closeness before Celie is forced into marriage and the sisters are separated. The production began principal photography on Jekyll Island with Phylicia Pearl Mpasi and Halle Bailey performing the beach duet while moving through the trees and across the sand. The location was also used for material visualising Nettie’s later experiences in Africa, with dancers, musicians and additional performers placed along the shoreline. Other scenes planned and filmed at Driftwood Beach included characters reading a letter beside a dead tree and a sequence involving a rider being thrown from a horse. The beach therefore represents both the Georgia coast of Celie and Nettie’s childhood and the distant African landscape described through Nettie’s letters.

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