Matthew Rhys had a lot on his mind at the Emmy Awards when he had to give acceptance speeches after being honored for “Widow’s Bay” and “The Beast in Me.”
But his longtime partner Keri Russell made sure she wasn’t one of his concerns.
Appearing on Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” podcast, Russell said Rhys was nervous about what he would say at the award ceremony if he won. The 51-year-old from Wales feared he might freeze if he were called to speak at the Sept. 14 show. So she told him not to worry about her.
“You don’t have to thank me,” she said she assured her Rhys. “I know you love me, take me off your plate.”
Russell acknowledged that Rhys would have a lot of people to thank the night of the award show and she didn’t need to be one of them.
“That’s your minute. That’s your 45 seconds,” she said.
Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Netflix
Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell attend an Emmy Awards party on September 14. (Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Netflix)
Russell told Rhys he could thank their dog walker if he felt compelled to do so. But she didn’t need to hear her name called. The 50-year-old “Felicity” star thinks that sentiment got the pair on the same page.
“We kind of said to each other, ‘We don’t have to thank each other,’” Russell said.
Rhys won a 2018 Emmy for his role opposite Russel in “The Americans.” He said in a 2017 interview that the pair met at a 2002 kickball game, then lost touch until they began working on the political thriller series in 2012. Two years later, People confirmed that they were dating.