Matthew Rhys revealed on Tuesday’s edition of “Late Night With Seth Meyers” the hilarious role that the New York City Police Department played in outing his then-secret relationship with “The Americans” co-star Keri Russell.
Russell and Rhys have been together since 2014, the year that “The Americans,” which ran for six seasons, premiered on FX. Throughout the early days of their romance, the two tried to keep their relationship under wraps, especially from the crew members and their castmates. That plan was disrupted, however, when an intruder broke into their New York City apartment one night.
“It was very unplanned,” Rhys told Meyers of his and Russell’s public outing as a couple. “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!’”
“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 recalled 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.”
The story did not end there. After Russell filed a police report and the intruder was caught, she got a message from the District Attorney’s office requesting to return their things to them as part of a photo-op on the set of “The Americans.”
“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 she was like, ‘Please, please don’t.’”
“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!’” Rhys continued. “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!’”
“Lo, it came to pass that we were together,” Rhys concluded, smiling. “Everyone [knew], one clean sweep. Didn’t have to hire a publicist. It was great.”
