Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys: From a secret romance exposed by a burglary to TV’s ultimate power couple

There are Hollywood couples who seem tailor-made for the red carpet, and others who become even more intriguing by trying to stay away from it. Matthew Rhys, 51, and Keri Russell, 50, belong firmly in the latter category. They have been together for more than a decade, built a family largely out of the spotlight, and many people still do not realize they are a couple.

That is, despite Rhys using his 2018 Emmy acceptance speech for The Americans to dedicate the award to Russell, his co-star on screen and partner off it. With a laugh, he recalled her warning that if he ever proposed to her live on stage, she would punch him “clean in the mouth.” Eight years later, she feels exactly the same way. “For me to have to do anything public is horrifying. I would die. I would say no. Good night!” she told Variety.

On September 14, however, they will once again share the Emmy spotlight, with five nominations between them for their work as actors and producers. And if Rhys ends up back on stage, it remains to be seen whether he dares to propose.

Russell is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for The Diplomat, in which she plays an ambassador navigating an international crisis while trying to keep her marriage afloat. Rhys, meanwhile, is up for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Apple TV+’s Widow’s Bay, in which he plays a mayor overwhelmed by increasingly supernatural events, as well as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for The Beast in Me.

It is not a bad haul for a couple who met through work and whose most memorable collaboration cast them as husband and wife. Before they were Matthew and Keri, they were the Jenningses: two Soviet spies posing as a suburban U.S. couple during the Cold War. The Americans premiered in 2013 and ended six seasons later as one of the defining dramas of its generation. And while their characters spent years hiding secrets from one another, the actors were beginning a far more real love story of their own.

Matthew and Keri first met 25 years ago, just as the actress had wrapped up Felicity, the series that made her a teenage television star. They met at a party hosted by fellow actor Jennifer Grey, best known for her leading role in Dirty Dancing. Rhys, who had only recently arrived in Hollywood, wasted no time in asking Russell for her phone number.

He has since admitted that he even left her a message on her answering machine. Russell never called back, perhaps, as Rhys himself likes to joke, because he was drunk when he left it.

The next time their paths crossed, years later, both had gone through their own struggles. Rhys spent years moving between small film and television roles, with Brothers & Sisters becoming his most recognizable credit. But few would have predicted that the Welsh actor would go on to become one of television’s most acclaimed stars. The dry spell became so severe in his twenties that he even applied to join the British Army, only to be turned down.

Burned out after the success of Felicity and an intense childhood as a child television host, where she shared the screen with future stars such as Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Russell left Hollywood and vowed never to act again.

She did not keep that promise, but she also struggled to find roles substantial enough to make her want to stay in the profession.“I certainly played a lot of nice moms for a long time. In my 20’s and 30’s, there was something about my face that screamed ‘nice pregnant girl,’” she said.

Russell also became a mother herself, having two children, River, now 19, and Willa Lou, 13, with carpenter Shane Deary. Their marriage lasted five years and ended shortly after the premiere of The Americans, the series that would change both Russell’s and Rhys’s personal and professional lives.

They kept their relationship secret for more than a year, hiding their dressing-room rendezvous from everyone involved with the show.

“It terrifies the producers when that happens,” Rhys later admitted, well aware that many on-set romances last less than a season but can leave tensions that linger long after. Despite their efforts, the secret eventually came out in the most unexpected way.

One night, burglars broke into Russell’s New York apartment while the two of them were in the bedroom.

“I remember thinking stupidly, ‘My next course of action will define how Keri sees me for the rest of my life.’ So if I say, ‘Let’s lock ourselves in the bathroom and call the police,’ she’ll think I’m a coward. The bedroom had a fireplace so I grabbed a poker and I made my way out, as dumb as you like. What was I thinking?” Rhys recalled in The Times.

The burglars fled when they heard him coming. Although they stole several items, police quickly caught them. A few days later, officers showed up at the set of The Americans to return Russell’s belongings. The problem was that some of the items were not hers, they belonged to Matthew. The cast and crew finally put two and two together.

“After that every day we’d see the look of concern on the producers’ faces: ‘Please, don’t split up and hate each other,’” he told The Times.

That didn’t happen. In 2016, Sam, their first child together, was born. The couple has spoken about parenthood with a candor rarely seen among stars of their stature. “If you get all three fed, vegetables eaten, someone’s asked me a question at dinner, bath, Harry Potter’s read, they’re in bed, and all three haven’t cried, it’s an enormous success,” said Rhys.

They say they manage family life by taking turns: when one is away filming, the other stays home with the children. It was for that very reason that Russell had no intention of starring in another television series after The Americans ended.

More than anyone, she understood what a hit show like The Americans or Felicity demanded: grueling 18-hour days, weeks with barely a day off and shoots that could take her to locations around the world. In the case of The Diplomat, those locations have included New York, London, Tuscany and Scotland. But the role of a woman who becomes the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom while trying to save both world peace and her own marriage made her change her mind.

“It was my turn to be home and do the laundry and make lunch and stuff,” she said. “But I thought, ‘I have to do this show.’” Judging by the series’ critical and commercial success, she was right.

Rhys has also enjoyed a particularly successful stretch. After wrapping up the psychological thriller The Beast in Me last year, a Netflix hit in which he played a real-estate magnate suspected by his neighbor, played by Claire Danes, of being a murderer, he has scored another major success in 2026 with Widow’s Bay.

The Apple TV+ series has gradually become a cultural phenomenon. Rhys’s performance as the mayor of a small coastal town determined to turn the community into a tourist destination while refusing to acknowledge the sinister forces surrounding it has been hailed by critics as one of the year’s finest.

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