By Kenn Gold

Todd Williams plays Bobby D in the new USA Network original series In Plain Sight, which premieres Sunday, June 1 at 10/9c.  Born and raised in New York City, Williams began the pursuit of his acting career straight out of high school.  Concerned about having a backup plan, he opted to earn a degree in communications while continuing to audition.  Not happy with his initial selection of major, he chose to explore another artistic passion of his and went on to study Music Business at New York University.

Still not satisfied, Williams subsequently left NYU to focus on his acting career full time.  After booking several national commercial and voice-over spots, he made his film debut starring opposite Kerry Washington in the critically acclaimed feature Lift.  Multiple television appearances followed on shows such as  Law & Order: Special Victims Unit  and  The Twilight Zone.   In 2004, while recurring on  Third Watch,  Williams landed a role starring alongside Michael Madsen in the highly praised ESPN original series  Tilt.   After moving to Los Angeles in 2005, he hit the ground running and secured numerous guest leads on such series as  CSI,   CSI: Miami  and the CW's  The Game.   In addition, he landed another lead role starring with Anthony Anderson in  The Last Stand.

Detective Robert Dershowitz, or Bobby D as he prefers to be called (Todd Williams), is a homicide detective who's frequently assigned to cases involving Mary's witnesses. He's pretty sure he's got Mary's number—that she's a U.S. Marshal working for WITSEC—and doesn't hide his disgust for the branch of law enforcement that puts known criminals back on the street. As confounding as it is for him that Mary will neither confirm nor deny her role or the true identities of the homicide victims no matter how many times he asks, he can't help but be attracted to her—or at least, let her play him, even though he is well aware that she only gives him the time of day when she needs something.

Question>  How is it different playing a detective within WITSEC 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.

Question>  Can you explain the long story behind your name?  It seems like there’s a big leap from D –

 Todd 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 that would make sense.  Yes, that’s all I could come up with.

Question>  How does Mary’s job get in the way of yours?

 Todd 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. 

Question>   Is there anything about the Witness Protection Program that surprised you?  Did you learn anything?

 Todd Williams>  You know what, 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.

Question>  Do you interact and work with Stan at all?

 Todd Williams>  Yes.  In the later episodes, me and Paul and Fred end up working together.

Question>  Is there going to be any sort of relationship between your character and Mary?

 Todd Williams>  I don’t know.  I know that as the episodes progress you see that Bobby’s character definitely has an attraction towards Mary, but I’m not sure where they take it or where the writers are going to take it.  It’d be interesting, though.

Question>  Have they photographed you without your shirt yet?

 Todd Williams>  No.  No shirtless photographs. I’d have to go to the gym a little more.

Question>  How did you like Albuquerque?

 Todd Williams>  Wow.  You know what?  When I had moved from New York to L.A. it was a little shocking because everything in L.A. is a little more spread out – well, not a little.  It’s a lot more spread out than New York.  I felt like the pace of it was a little slower.  So, when I went to Albuquerque, L.A. was pretty much New York to Albuquerque.  It was much slower.  Beautiful, though.  I had to just appreciate it for what it was and not try to compare it for what it wasn’t.  Albuquerque has a lot of cool things that you can do.  If you want to clear your head, shoot, there’s nothing else to do but clear your head. 

Question>  What attracted you to the project initially?

 Todd Williams>  It was a good script.  The characters were well written.  The premise of the show is something that I hadn’t seen before because I don’t think that any show has really touched on the life of somebody that’s a marshal for the Witness Protection Agency.  It was just cool.  It was a great cast.  I remember when we were doing a reading, it was before I had met any of the other cast, it just confirmed all of that stuff that I had thought, all the positive things that I knew would come out of it because the actors that are involved with this – they’re fantastic.  Mary, Paul Ben-Victor, Lesley Ann Warren.  I mean, it’s cool.  Fred Weller.  Everybody – it’s just a great cast.

Question>  Can you talk a little bit about what your character does in the show; expand a little bit on what we’re going to be seeing from you?

 Todd Williams>  Oh, wow.  You’re in the same boat as I am.  I don’t know where Bobby’s going.  He’s a local homicide detective for the Albuquerque P.D.  Throughout the episodes, you find that Mary’s witnesses tend to always be involved in a case that he’s covering.  They’re always going back and forth with each other because he needs certain information that she’s not willing to give. He’s just trying to do his job, but she’s just trying to do her job.  So, they’re bumping heads.  Then, there’s definitely a respect.  It’s primarily their relationship in solving these crimes that they focus on within the first season now.  Second season, I don’t know where they’re going to take them.  I’d be interested to know as well.

Question>  So, you already shot the first season now?

 Todd Williams>  Yes.  The first season is in the can. 

Question>  Is there a favorite episode that you have from the first season?

 Todd Williams>  A favorite episode?  Man.  Let me see.  There was one particular episode that was crazy.  One of her witnesses ends up in a car accident where they find the car engulfed in flames and Mary goes to search out his wife.  We end up finding out all this other stuff and we’re dealing with fire.  We get caught up in an art gallery.  They get caught up in flames.  It was very exciting.  Anything that has any danger, I kind of dig it.  Anything that I can get close to kind of doing a stunt is cool without actually doing the stunt because I don’t like pain, but I do like to look cool.  So, that was probably the coolest episode. 

Question>  When you heard about the show, was Bobby D the character you were looking to play, or was there another character you were interested in?

 Todd Williams>  It was pretty much just an audition and I think Bobby D was the only guy whose description I fit, to be honest with you.  I couldn’t be Raphael, and I couldn’t be Stan, so Bobby D I think is perfect.  He’s an African-American in his early 30’s, so it just came down to that, to be honest with you.

Question>  You said that in casting for Bobby D that it was the only role on In Plain Sight that kind of fit your description, like, looking for an African-American actor.  Do you find that going out on casting, there’s a limited amount of roles for African-American actors?

 Todd Williams>  Definitely.  I think that that’s just the nature of the beast.  I mean, most shows are going to be geared towards the majority, and the majority amount of people within America are Caucasian, I think African-Americans maybe come in second.  So, the shows that are going to be produced are going to try to reflect what the primary demographic is, so the roles are going to be just less unless they have an all Black cast, which comes along, but not as much, or if you have a more diverse cast, but even still, the roles are just not going to be as many.

Question>  So, getting back to In Plain Sight, is there any kind of a tease or a taste that you can give us about, maybe an interesting witness protection case that you work on with Mary, or just give us a little more insight into what we can expect maybe the first few episodes?

 Todd Williams>  I don’t know what order they’re going to put things in.  Even though the character kind of knows that the people who are involved in the Witness Protection, he never gets the information, like there’s no confirmation that they actually are.  So, he’s not sure.  He has an idea, but he’s not sure. 

  Based on Bobby’s character, I don’t know.  I mean, they do get into some very interesting circumstances, I will say that.  It’s because you have these characters - whether they’re in relationships or not – they’re shuttled to Albuquerque of all places and having to deal with this new life and with the past fears that they have from where they came from.  So, they’re thinking that, “Okay, am I really safe?  How do I deal with these new circumstances?  Are the people who I went against, are they able to find me?”  This can make a lot of problems for a relationship.  Say you have a married couple, and they come together.  There’s a whole bunch of turmoil that arises because of all of these stresses that cause a whole new set of problems that people end up in doing criminal activity that introduces myself.  I don’t have a straightforward answer.  I mean, you have a lot of cool, interesting people that come through, and a lot of great characters, a lot of great guest stars.