After several roles on a number of TV series over the years and a longer, incredibly impressive career on the Broadway stage, Fredrick Weller is returning to television as a U.S. Marshal and partner to series star Mary McCormack on the upcoming USA Network crime series In Plain Sight, which airs June 1 at 10pm. Nicole Hiltz, on the other hand, has appeared in several popular films and TV series over the years (Shallow Hal, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Smallville, The O.C.) and is also a regular on In Plain Sight in the role of Brandi Shannon, the troubled and somewhat estranged daughter of U.S. Marshal/Witness Protection Program agent Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack).

This past week The Deadbolt went into hiding and found Frederick Weller and Nicole Hiltz on a conference call where they filled us, and a few other outlets, in on what fans can expect from their characters and In Plain Sight when it debuts this Sunday, June 1.

THE DEADBOLT: Did you go into the WITSEC aspect of the series with any biases of what you thought it was?

FREDERICK WELLER: Wow, good question. I learned that the percentage of people who go into it - go into the program who are actually innocent of any crime - is much larger than I thought. I had assumed that WITSEC was basically "turned" mobsters. I think our guy said 40% are completely innocent people who just need protection from organized criminals. That was an eye opener for me. Also, the extent to which the U.S. Marshals in the WITSEC program are very - well, physically dangerous. They’re supposedly the best in the world at kicking down doors and are frequently borrowed by the other branches of the U.S. Marshal Service just for that purpose. Just for kind of, you know, SWAT type situations. That is not featured in our first season, but probably will be if the show stays on the air. I don’t mean to say that action and the use of force and gunplay isn’t featured. I mean, we’re never borrowed by other branches of the U.S. Marshal Service but there’s a lot of action.

THE DEADBOLT: Has playing this role made you more secretive in your personal life?

WELLER: I can’t say.

THE DEADBOLT: Nicole, does Brandi’s past with the suitcase full of meth come back to haunt her?

NICHOLE HILTZ: [laughs] Oh, yeah. I mean it’s not as obvious as it sounds, but you can tell just by looking at it. There’s no way that that’s really going to go away cleanly, it causes her a lot of trouble. It causes everybody quite a bit of trouble.

THE DEADBOLT: What was your entry point into the character?

HILTZ: Well, it was kind of bizarre because in the pilot it didn’t give a lot of information about how she got there. Basically, it said she shows up and we see the meth and she’s crying and there’s not a lot. We get the idea that she has a boyfriend in Albuquerque, but there’s not a lot of information. She was so bratty that I remember not really liking her at all at first and I had to think, "Why is she behaving this way?" I tried to come up with these reasons. You know, good reasons why someone might be in that place and behaving strangely. And as it went on and we got picked up, and the episodes went on, I started learning more and more about her from our writer David Maples and it all sort of made sense. I just ended up falling in love with her once I got over how bratty she was, and I tried to find a good reason to make her bratty.

Hiding In Plain Sight with Frederick Weller and Nicole Hiltz Page 2