Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell fell in love while playing husband-and-wife Soviet agents in acclaimed FX drama “The Americans.”
While the two co-stars kept their burgeoning on-set romance low-key at the time, Russell is now opening up about some of the steamy shenanigans the two got up to after the director yelled “cut.”
‘It Was Insanity’
During an appearance on Chelsea Handler‘s “Dear Chelsea” podcast, Russell recalled the burning attraction she and her now-partner felt for each other on the set of “The Americans.”
That led to some unusual situations, particularly when the two were in one of the many disguises their characters — covert Soviet spies Philip and Elizabeth Jenkins — frequently wore in order to evade detection.
“We were falling in love and staying up all night and having sex all the time and just wearing disguises, like, I’m [expletive] [in] crazy wigs and wearing pearls,” she said, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.
“When have you ever worn pearls and [been] [expletive] in trailers and [expletive] everywhere. I mean, it was insanity. It was so fun and sneaky, and sexy, and so good,” she added.
The Wild Way Their Romance Was Outed
During those early days of their romance, Rhys and Russell made serious attempts to keep it hidden from both the public and the cast and crew on the show.
That plan, however, blew up spectacularly in a very unexpected way, which Rhys related during an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
As Rhys recalled, one night he and Russell were asleep in the New York City apartment they were secretly sharing when an intruder broke in.
“It was very unplanned,” Rhys explained.
“It was quite terrifying, actually. We were together in an apartment, and she woke me up and said, ‘I think there’s someone in the apartment.’ I said, ‘There’s no one in the apartment,’ and then I heard someone saying something. I went, ‘Oh, there’s someone in the apartment!'” he recounted.
“It was early days, and I thought, ‘Whatever I do next, might define the way she regards me for the rest of my life,'” Rhys remembered with a laugh. “So I picked up a [fire] poker, instead of locking ourselves in the bathroom, calling 911, which we should do. I went, ‘You stay here, I shall go out.’ And I think my classically trained pipes made them flee, thankfully. So they fled. Anyway, they caught them very quickly, apprehended them.”
However, that wasn’t the end of the story. After Russell filed a police report and the intruder was caught, she received message from the District Attorney’s office.
“They were like, ‘Oh, we’d love to bring you your things back and present them to you on set and do a photograph for the DA [with] the NYPD officers who caught them,'” Rhys explained. “She was like, ‘No, no, no, that’s all right! I’ll just come to a precinct to pick them up.’ He was like, ‘No, we’ll come to set, and we’ll take a photograph and present them to you.’ And was like, ‘Please, please don’t.'”
According to Rhys, attempts to prevent the NYPD from of coming to the set were futile. “They very kindly — and God bless them and thank you for their service — came to set, held up a bag and went, ‘We caught them, and here’s her bag!’ And then the young PA who was next to me and the AD went, ‘No, no, that’s Matthew’s bag!’ And I was like, ‘Shut up!’ They took [something out of the bag], like, ‘Here’s her watch!’ And [the PA was like] like, ‘No, no! That’s Matthew’s watch!’ I was like, ‘SHUT! UP!'” he continued.
“Lo, it came to pass that we were together,” Rhys added. “Everyone [knew], one clean sweep. Didn’t have to hire a publicist. It was great.”
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Keri Russell Remembers She and Matthew Rhys ‘Having Sex All the Time’ In Their Disguses for ‘The Americans’