After numerous roles on such popular television shows as Law & Order: SVU, The Twilight Zone, C.S.I., C.S.I. Miami, The Game and Third Watch, actor Todd Williams has found a new home on the upcoming USA Network crime drama In Plain Sight. In the series, Williams plays homicide detective Bobby Dershowitz (Bobby D) who's frequently assigned to the cases involving lead character Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack), a Marshal from the Witness Protection Program.

With the series about to make its debut on June 1 at 10pm, The Deadbolt did its own detective work and tracked down Todd Williams on a recent conference call where he dished the dirt about his relationship to Mary McCormack's character, how playing a detective inthis series is different than others in his career, and what we can expect from In Plain Sight.

THE DEADBOLT: How is it different playing a detective in this series in relation to playing a detective on a show like Third Watch?

TODD WILLIAMS: Well, see the thing is that Bobby D’s character is a local detective, so he has no affiliation with WITSEC. So, it’s relatively the same thing, just a different type of guy.

THE DEADBOLT: Can you explain the long story behind your chatacter's last name?

WILLIAMS: Yes. You know what? His last name is Dershowitz. They really didn’t give me a rundown on what his story was, so I was trying to make it up in my own mind. I figured that perhaps his grandfather’s name was Dershowitz and he had married a black woman and had his father who is bi-racial. But his name is Dershowitz and then he married a black woman. I don’t know but I figured that, genetically maybe, would make sense. That’s all I could come up with.

THE DEADBOLT: How does Mary’s job get in the way of yours?

WILLIAMS: Because she has to always keep the identity of her witnesses concealed any time they get involved with any of my cases. As a detective, you need all the information that you can so that you can do your job. It’s like pulling teeth because she wants to be able to protect their identities at the same time, but then try to collaborate on trying to figure out what happened. So, it proves to be difficult. But in the end we always end up getting who we’re supposed to get.

THE DEADBOLT: Is there anything about the Witness Protection Program that surprised you?

WILLIAMS: You know, because my character isn’t within it, my research didn’t really pertain to it. As the character, he himself doesn’t really know about it. So, I figured that if I knew too much about it, it would kind of take away from the authenticity of the character a little bit.

THE DEADBOLT: Do you interact and work with Stan [Paul Ben Victor] at all?

WILLIAMS: Yes. In the later episodes, me and Paul [Ben Victor] and Fred [Weller] end up working together.

Detective Work with In Plain Sight's Todd Williams Page 2