Did you know Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys were dating? We did not know Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys were dating. The two leads on FX’s Cold War spy drama The Americans have been a confirmed couple since 2014, but their love evaded our intelligence-gathering missions until this news broke on Wednesday: A real-life Americans baby is in the works.
US Weekly reports that Rhys and Russell, who has two young children from a previous marriage, are more than four months pregnant. They’re currently filming the fourth season of The Americans, which will premiere in March, and which will be even more spellbinding now that we know one of the sexiest, most complicated relationships on television is sort of, kind of real.
Rumors of an off-screen relationship between the two actors germinated just after the show’s first season, when they were spotted “looking at furniture” in Brooklyn. They continued their convincingly coupley activity at the Public Theater in April of 2014, where they spent an evening “stroking” each other’s hair and “whispering” to one another. Rhys’ mother, quite the capable infiltrator, set up a Google alert for her son’s name and saw the gossip about him and Russell. He denied the the alleged affair. “I’ve told her a million times that there are a million inaccuracies that she’s read, [but she still] calls and goes, ‘Is this true?’ ” he said. “I tell her, ‘No! When are you going to get it?’ ” Very convincing.
Russell and Rhys’ romance has mirrored the Americans storyline: The two were placed together as a fake couple for the sake of their jobs and, over time—through choreographed tenderness, long nights spent plotting strategy, and the banality of workaday script memorization/kidnapping attempts—they fell in love. Their compelling chemistry on the show and the script’s attention to their deepening intimacy makes news of their relationship and imminent procreation even more exciting; we already feel like we’ve felt their affection.
The couple is so enchanting on The Americans, they make us feel good about rooting for Mother Russia over the stiffs at the FBI. Could Russell and Rhys’ lives as famous television actors be a double facet of an elaborate cover? Second-generation spies, we’ve learned, are far more valuable to the cause, since they can infiltrate the inner circles of American government. As long as we get to keep watching their passion bloom and the Centre leaves their progeny alone until she or he is old enough to make an informed decision about spy life, that’s just fine by us.
