Matthew Rhys says his on-set romance with Keri Russell on “The Americans” was approached tentatively.
“We were both at an age where we’ve done it long enough to go, ‘You know workplace [romances] can be disastrous,” he told Page Six exclusively at The Paley Center for Media on Wednesday night.
“So, I think it was approached with caution and a great deal of trepidation,” the actor, 47, continued. “And coupled with that, for me, was certainly fun and excitement.”
“Thank God it worked!” he exclaimed with Russell, 48, echoing the sentiment.
“Thank God!” she agreed.
The longtime couple worked together on the FX series “The Americans,” where they played a pair of 1980s Russian KGB sleeper agents with two children who have no idea what their parents actually do. The show debuted in January 2013 and ran for six seasons.
Rhys recently revealed on an episode of “WWHL” that he first met Russell “about a quarter of a century” before their television show.
“We went to a kickball party hosted by Jennifer Grey,” he said explaining that it was then that he asked for Russell’s number.
“She gave it to me, but this is where it all falls apart,” Rhys shared. “I have no memory of this because I was very inebriated, but I left a very inebriated message on her answering machine, as people had in those days.”
“Which she didn’t find charming?” Cohen asked, to which Rhys quipped, “Not in the slightest!”
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The “Felicity” alum was married to Shane Deary, a Brooklyn-based contractor, from 2007 to 2013. They share two children, son River, 15, and daughter Willa, 11.
As for Rhys and Russell, they have been together since 2013 and share a son, Sam, 6.
The couple was at The Paley Center for Media in honor of the Cold War drama’s 10th-anniversary debut on Wednesday night. They joined a moderated conversation with co-creators, Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, along with co-star Noah Emmerich, who played their clueless next-door neighbor, Stan Beeman.
Russell will soon be seen in the Netflix series “The Diplomat,” an action thriller in which she plays the U.S. Ambassador to the U.K who has to manage an international political crisis.
Rhys can currently be seen in the HBO series “Perry Mason.”
