Tonight USA airs its fourth episode of the series DIG. Omar Metwally (Non-stop, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2) plays the character of Yuseff Khalid, an American who disappeared to Israel after being accused of murder. It was recently revealed that the fugitive was working with the US Ambassador to Israel, Ruth Ridell (Regina Taylor), to find, and steal if need be, the gemstones for the high-priest's breast plate.

Earlier in the week, the actor talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about his work on the series.

Metwally became involved in DIG originally because of one of the series creators. "I actually got involved because of Gideon Raff. Basically he and I had met; I had auditioned for a different project that he had been working on, and that didn't end up working out, but I've sort of stayed on his mind. And when this project started up, it was the perfect opportunity for us to finally work together."

There was more than one thing that originally attracted the actor to the role. "I took the role for a couple reasons. One was that I really wanted to work with Gideon, and the second reason was that I read the script, and at first I wasn't sure, because in the pilot, so little is revealed about this character and what his role is going to be in the series, but after talking with Tim [Kring] and Gideon, they both assured me that it's a role that's going to go to some interesting places, and they were right about that."

Metwally really didn't take inspiration from anyone in his portrayal of Yuseff, and he liked that the character doesn't really have a fixed identity. "I think the thing that I found so interesting about Yuseff, is that it's so hard to pin down who he is. He has this very ever-changing quality to him, so that when he adopts these disguises - because we never really know who the real Yuseff is - it all seems so fluid. Usually when you're working on a character, you try to sort of root the person in some kind of fixed identity, but with this character, I intentionally wanted to keep it sort of opaque and vague, because I think that's the strength of the character, that he can't be pinned down. He's sort of protean; he's always changing. There wasn't actually a model for him. It was sort of whatever was required, whatever he was doing in the scene that day, that's who he was.

"That actually was really liberating, and it was such a fun way to work on a role, because it was actually very freeing, because I didn't have to worry about consistency or being true to the character. This character is a different thing every different day. So that was really fun."

At the beginning of filming DIG, the actor didn't know the full span of the story, but he knew enough to get an idea where that story was going. "I remember seeing the first six episodes, and I think that, obviously, Gideon and Tim had a plan for the whole series, but six was obviously enough for me to get a sense of the arc of the show, the character, and at least partially where things were headed. And it was definitely enough to see that this was really a unique and interesting story they were telling.

"And I think an important thing too, is that it was enough to see that a lot of these questions that they are introducing are going to be resolved, or lot of dots start to get connected. Because a lot of times there are so many mysteries and questions being raised in a show that you sort of wonder, are they going to tie these threads together or not? And so I could see that they knew what they were doing, and they had a plan for where the story was going."

Metwally worked on a few action scenes on the series. "That first chase scene in the pilot episode, where we're running on the rooftops of Jerusalem, that was my first day of shooting on the show actually, and probably one of the more memorable days of shooting I've had on any project, because we were shooting on location and literally running over people's rooftops and through their courtyards. I mean, they were all aware we were doing it, but still, it was really fun and exciting, and it felt kind of like a guerrilla kind of shooting.

"And there was just a lot of interaction with the people who lived there. Like we were doing one shot in somebody's courtyard, and the family that lived there came out and brought us Turkish coffee. It was really fun and an incredible way to to see the city as well."

One of the bigger action scenes was the car crash when his character escaped from Agent Connelly (Jason Isaac)'s custody. "The car crash was actually one of those things that if people knew how slow and boring it is to actually shoot something like that - because the car is on a rig behind a green screen, meaning it's like rigged to this giant hamster wheel, and you kind of get strapped into it, and they turn it and rotate it slowly, and the props guy throws little pieces of rubber glass in your face. You know, it's not as fun as it looks. But it ended up looking really good."

DIG filmed in a variety of locations that spanned the globe. "We filmed in so many incredible locations on this show. For the pilot, of course, we shot in Jerusalem, and then we were in Croatia, which is just astonishingly beautiful, some of the places we were. And then also New Mexico, which is also a great place to shoot. So I didn't expect that this show was going to take me to three continents, but that's what ended up happening. It was really cool."

For Metwally, one of the most challenging things about working on the series was due to location problems. "For me, I think that the trickiest thing was, I've never been on a show that was forced to relocate because of current events. I mean, there was a moment where we were uncertain about whether the show was going to continue, and if it was going to continue, where we were going to move to. It ended up the timeline for the show got stretched out by months and months, because of all the chaos. So that was probably the hardest part, sort of being patient as we waited to hear what the fate of the show was going to be."

The actor enjoyed working with Jason Isaacs and Ori Pfeffer (Golan Cohen), as well as the rest of the cast. "Those guys, they're great, really the whole cast. People always say this, but it was truly a really special group of people and actors, and I think because we had weathered so much adversity in getting this show made, and because we traveled to so many places together and were working in so many different environments together, we got pretty close. And Jason, as the lead of the show, he really carries that so gracefully and is such a warm and friendly presence. He doesn't act like, you know, "Oh this is my show;" he really makes everyone feel like they're an important part of the ensemble. And Ori, the same way. Ori's also a great guy. So we had a lot of fun."

Metwally talked a bit about his favorite scene in the series so far. "For me, getting to all that stuff in episode three where I change my look and seduce the body guard and kill him, that stuff was so just fun and intense to work on. You know, as an actor, you always hope to get a chance to play a part that gets to go to these really intense places. And I got to do that."

Lastly, the actor teased a bit about tonight's episode. "The search for the final missing stone continues, and it takes us to some unexpected places."