Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell balance 10 years after The Americans
matthew rhys and Keri Russell have stayed together for more than a decade after playing Elizabeth and Philip Jennings on The Americans. Their relationship began after six seasons of spying on camera, then kept going through awards-season appearances and family life.
December 2013 in Brooklyn Heights
In December 2013, reports of a romance between the two heated up after Season 2 of The Americans finished filming. They were spotted walking around Russell’s Brooklyn Heights neighborhood a few days before Christmas, and her publicist said she and Shane Deary had split after six years of marriage.
Russell and Deary share two children, River and Willa, and the separation was described as amicable and focused on the children. River was 6 and Willa was almost 2 at the time, which put the family transition in public view just as the off-screen relationship started to surface.
Rhys on the balance
Rhys later told Parade that the secret to the relationship is that they “balance each other.” He said Russell is the calm head and that he is “the fiery one,” adding, “We work well as a team; we have a good partnership and we make each other laugh.”
Russell had already described the filming dynamic as romantic in its own way, saying, “We were, like, hot and heavy in love, shooting the spy stuff at night in disguises and wigs.” That pairing gave The Americans a real-life off-camera story line without changing the fact that the show itself ran for six seasons and built their public partnership around work, not tabloid theater.
2023 burglary and awards
In 2023, Rhys said on the Smartless podcast that he was at Russell’s brownstone during the burglary in Brooklyn Heights. He described thinking, “What I do next, she will judge me on for the rest of our lives,” after realizing the break-in happened while they were in the house.
At the Critics Choice Awards in January, both Rhys and Russell were nominated and neither won. In March, Russell took Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and used her speech to give Rhys a shoutout: “Happy Saint David’s Day to my Welsh guy.” That moment fits the larger picture here: the relationship that started on set has lasted long enough to show up in acceptance speeches, not just old press clips.
