Welsh actor Matthew Rhys made television history at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles last week by becoming the first person to win two lead acting prizes on the same night, attending the ceremony alongside his long-time partner Keri Russell.
Rhys, 51, won best lead actor in a limited series for playing a sinister real estate magnate suspected of murder in the psychological thriller The Beast In Me. He followed it with a second win for best lead actor in a comedy for his role as the mayor of a haunted New England island in the horror-comedy Widow's Bay.
Rhys also earned a third trophy as an executive producer when Widow's Bay took home outstanding comedy series. Calling his win for The Beast In Me a "real shock," the modest actor dedicated his second award to the people of Wales who nurtured him and thanked his parents for kicking him onto the stage at an early age.
While Rhys thanked family, friends, and colleagues, many observers noted that he omitted Russell from his acceptance speech. The couple swiftly dismissed any suggestion that she felt slighted, with Rhys later admitting to the BBC that he had prepared nothing because he never expected to win. He described his impromptu remarks as a "vomit of a speech" and attributed his success to luck and timing.
Russell, 50, was also nominated at the event, giving the couple five nominations across three shows. She was up for lead actress in a drama and executive producer for The Diplomat, in which she plays a US diplomat named ambassador to the UK during a crisis, though she walked away empty-handed. Rhys teased that their children had set up a betting pool on their chances, calling Russell the true winner for her grace toward fellow nominees.
The Brooklyn Burglary
The high-profile appearance comes years after the couple first began their relationship while co-starring in the FX drama series The Americans, playing Soviet sleeper agents posing as a married couple in 1980s suburban Washington DC.
They kept their romance secret until a 2013 burglary at Russell's Brooklyn Heights apartment forced it into the open. The couple awoke to find intruders upstairs and ran naked into the living room, with Rhys brandishing a fireplace poker. The thieves escaped with stolen items packed into Rhys's backpack.
When police arrested the suspects, the local district attorney arranged to return the stolen property to Russell on the set of The Americans. A production crew member spotted the bag and shouted that it belonged to Matthew, exposing their hidden trysts to the cast and crew.
Rhys later recalled the sitcom-like reveal, noting that nervous producers constantly worried the couple might split up. By season four, Russell was pregnant, a detail hidden during filming. They now share a 10-year-old son named Sam, alongside Russell's older children, 19-year-old River and 14-year-old Willa, from her former marriage to contractor Shane Deary.
Life in Brooklyn
Despite their Hollywood success, Rhys and Russell have never married and maintain an unstarry, low-key lifestyle in Brooklyn. They reside in the same house Russell lived in when they fell in love, which she later purchased and had renovated by her ex-husband Deary.
The family maintains a friendly dynamic, with Rhys, Russell, and Deary occasionally taking vacations together. Their children attend Saint Ann's, a local liberal private school where fellow celebrity parents include Ethan Hawke, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Jennifer Connelly. A school insider noted that Rhys frequently handles morning drop-off without any celebrity vibe.
On weekends, the couple retreats upstate to hike with a group of friends they call their "Mountain Family." Russell recently told Variety that most of their friends are not actors and that people do not care about them, shortly before the magazine featured them on its cover as "Television's First Couple."
Addressing why they never married, Russell cited a desire to keep their finances separate and the freedom of not wearing a ring. When Rhys won an Emmy for The Americans in 2018, he joked in his speech that Russell had promised to punch him clean in the mouth if he proposed on stage.
From Cardiff to Hollywood
Rhys was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, the son of two teachers. Raised by strict Methodist parents, he attended Welsh-language schools and went to chapel on Sundays, where his mother played the organ. Though he played rugby and originally wanted to be a farmer, he was the only pupil at his school interested in acting.
After winning the Patricia Rothermere Scholarship in 1993, Rhys attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London alongside his best friend, Ioan Gruffudd. The pair shared a home in Kilburn for ten years, often speaking Welsh together. Rhys continues to speak Welsh with his son Sam, calling the survival of the language the most important thing to him.
Rhys made his major stage breakthrough in 2000 playing Benjamin Braddock in a West End production of The Graduate. He admitted feeling embarrassed while co-starring opposite 45-year-old Kathleen Turner, saying Welsh nerves kept him from looking at her during her naked scenes.
Off stage, Rhys dated publicist Ciara Parkes and was rumored to have had a fling with actress Sienna Miller. He moved to Santa Monica in 2006, joining a group of Welsh ex-pats called the "LA Tafia" before spending five years starring as gay lawyer Kevin Walker on the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters.
Rhys first encountered Russell around 2002 at a kickball party in Los Angeles, where he left a drunken voicemail after asking for her number. When they reconnected on The Americans in 2012, Russell remembered him as the buffoon who would not stop calling.
Keri Russell's Stardom
Russell began her career at age 15 on Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club alongside Britney Spears, Ryan Gosling, and Justin Timberlake. After starring in the 1992 comedy Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, she earned widespread fame playing the title role in Felicity from 1998 to 2002, winning a Golden Globe in 1999.
She became the face of CoverGirl cosmetics in 2006 before marrying Shane Deary on Valentine's Day in 2007. Following her amicable separation from Deary in 2013, rumors linked her with Rhys. The couple initially approached their romance cautiously over bottles of red wine to avoid the pitfalls of on-set relationships before People magazine confirmed their relationship in April 2014.
Russell has remained ambivalent about celebrity, admitting she was guarded as a young actress to avoid selling out and once describing acting and stardom as creepy to The New Yorker. The politically active couple, who once attended an Obama administration state dinner, continue to keep a modest profile even as Rhys's historic Emmy double brings renewed attention to television's most understated partnership.
