Keri Russell has opened up about the early days of her romance with Matthew Rhys.
The “Felicity” alum, 50, revealed during Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” podcast, released Oct. 8, that she and her “Americans” co-star used to have sex in their spy disguises while filming the FX drama. “We were falling in love and staying up all night and having sex all the time and just wearing disguises, like, I’m f—ing [in] crazy wigs and wearing pearls,” she recalled on the episode.
“When have you ever worn pearls and [been] f—ing in trailers and f—ing everywhere,” Russell continued. “I mean, it was insanity.”
Russell and Rhys, 51, began dating in late 2013 after Russell split from ex-husband Shane Deary following nearly seven years of marriage. The pair got close while playing Soviet KGB officers posing as an American married couple on the critically acclaimed series, which ran for six seasons before ending in 2018.
The actress looked back fondly at that period. “It was so fun and sneaky, and sexy, and so good,” she said.
Russell also addressed why the couple, who share 10-year-old son Sam, have not married after 13 years together. “I’ve had a big party, you know. I get to dress up all the time, and I know for a lot of people, marriage is something different,” she explained during the podcast. “People used to be married to have a credit card. We can have credit cards now. I don’t need my last name to go away,” she added.
She defended Rhys for not thanking her during his two Emmy acceptance speeches last month, when he won lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie for “The Beast in Me” and lead actor in a comedy series for “Widow’s Bay.” Russell revealed she had given him permission to skip her name days earlier when he was anxious about public speaking.
“I looked at him a few days before and I said, ‘OK, well, can you articulate what you’re most nervous about?'” she recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Yeah, having to speak.’ And I said, ‘Totally.’ And I said, ‘Take me off your plate. Like, you don’t have to thank me. I know you love me.'”
“I don’t care if you want to thank the dog walker. You do whatever you want to do. That’s your minute. That’s your 45 seconds. So I just said, ‘Take me off your plate,'” she continued.
Russell and Rhys developed their real-life relationship while their characters, Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, maintained their fake marriage as cover for espionage missions across the Washington, D.C. Area during the Cold War. The show’s premise required extensive use of wigs, costumes and alternate identities as the couple carried out operations for the Soviet Union while raising two children who believed them to be ordinary Americans.
The couple’s son Sam was born in 2016, during the show’s fourth season. Russell also has two older children from her marriage to Deary.
Rhys is set to appear next in the upcoming Apple TV+ series “The Last Frontier.”