Keri Russell has given a candid account of the early days of her relationship with Matthew Rhys, which the couple kept secret while filming the first seasons of The Americans. Speaking on the Dear Chelsea podcast, the 50-year-old actress, who first found fame in the late 1990s with Felicity, described stolen moments in their trailers and nights spent falling in love away from the cameras.
Russell said the period was intense and exciting, with the pair staying up all night and even wearing disguises to avoid being recognised. “It was so fun and sneaky, and sexy, and so good,” she recalled. The Cold War drama cast the two as Soviet spies posing as an American married couple, which meant their characters were partners on screen while the actors hid their real relationship off it. According to Russell, the pair kept the romance to themselves throughout those early seasons.
Their story began years before the series. Russell and Rhys first met in the early 2000s at the after-party of a kickball tournament in Los Angeles. Rhys has said on Watch What Happens Live that he had been drinking that night and left a drunken voicemail on her answering machine. “I had a bit to drink, so I asked for her number,” he admitted. Russell later forgot the encounter entirely, and Rhys had to remind her of it during stunt training when filming started in 2012.
The timing was complicated. In December 2013, Russell confirmed she had separated from her husband, Shane Deary, with whom she shares two children, River and Willa. She and Rhys went public in 2014, two years after The Americans began shooting, and their son Sam was born in 2016. The couple have now been together for more than a decade.
They have never married, and Russell has made clear she does not see the need. She has called marriage antiquated and said their son gives them a lifelong bond that does not depend on a wedding. Rhys made light of the subject in 2018, when he accepted the Emmy for lead actor in a drama for The Americans, when he joked that Russell had threatened to punch him if he ever proposed. Her latest comments add a new chapter to one of television’s best-known off-screen love stories, told with the same frankness she has brought to the subject before.
