PASADENA, Calif. _ While he doesn't believe in fairy tales, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys is living one. Not only is he winding up six seasons in FX's thrilling "The Americans," his co-star, Keri Russell, turned out to be the love of his life.
"I met Keri when I was 26 in a park with (fellow actor) Ioan (Gruffudd) actually many years ago," he says.
He and Gruffudd (another Welshman) were in Los Angeles auditioning for pilot season. "We were sharing a motel room on Beverly and we had a friend, Jennifer Gray, the actress. She said, 'We're having a kickball party.'
"'What's kickball?' It was in Rustic Canyon, and I met Keri in the parking lot. The kickball barbecue was finishing, and she asked if I could open a beer. She didn't have an opener. I tried to do it with a key and it didn't work. And then years later I did several auditions for 'The Americans.' And the first day we had a day of fight-training, and we had lunch, and I said, 'You know, we've met before. We met at a kickball party in Rustic Canyon.' She went, 'Ahh, you were the British guy.'
"I said, 'Welsh.' So I think that kickball party in Rustic Canyon was a life changer for me because it all kind of stemmed from there."
What stemmed from there was Rhys's determination to continue acting, though it didn't start out so smoothly. "I first came to LA doing a play with Paul Bettany in the West End, and an American agent came to see him. And I signed with him (the agent). I was going to New Zealand to do a job and he said, 'On the way back come to LA and do a pilot season.' I had no idea what that meant, so I came and got this film with Julie Taymor," he recalls.
"It was Julie Taymor's first film (an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange). And I thought, 'Oh, LA is the land of milk and honey. You just turn up and get a huge movie! Why didn't anybody tell me about this before?' Obviously I didn't work for the next 10 years," he laughs.
The son of a school principal and a music teacher for the blind, Rhys had made a pact with his folks when he graduated from high school. "My parents said, 'Look, we'll do a deal. Apply to five universities and two drama schools. If you get into one of the two drama schools, you can go. But it should be the better of them.' So I applied to RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) and to the Bristol Vic, where Daniel Day-Lewis went."
He was accepted by three of the universities and by RADA. "I went, 'Oh, I'm going to go!' It was this real turning point where this kind of slightly ethereal thought became a reality, 'Oh, I'm going to become an actor. I'm going to be defined by my vocation.'"
He worked as a kitchen porter and printed ice hockey shorts while he was a struggling actor. "The flip side of me telling my father that I wanted to be an actor was him telling me how to save money," he smiles. "And it has been a value lesson that has stayed with me from that day forth. He said, 'The simple rule is, if it's not in your pocket, don't spend it.' He just said, 'Save, save, save. And when you think you have enough, save some more.' I stuck by that."
Still, to this day, Rhys wonders if he made the right decision. "Weekly (I) feel I made the wrong choice," he smiles.
"Don't get me wrong, it feels like I'm browbeating on the profession. But this has afforded me a life that I never thought was possible of such luxury. And I don't mean material things, (the luxury) of true experience, and that's a great luxury to meet the people you meet," he says.
Even so, he pauses, "Sometimes I feel _ I don't know if emasculated is the word _ when you find yourself in some outlandish costume in a group of people and making a performing monkey of yourself, and you go, 'What am I doing?' I could justify it in my 20s, even in my 30s, but now I have a son. And I find these moments when truly pretending to be somebody else, I go, 'Oh, my God!'"
He and Russell's son, Sam, is 2 years old. Russell has two other children by a previous marriage.
Rhys thinks the birth of Sam changed him. "My regard for women," he rolls his eyes, "they're clearly a superior race. I've never seen an exercise in grit more intense than the birth of my son. She's incredible," he sighs.
FOSTER HEADLINER AND NEW MOTHER
Sutton Foster ("Younger," "Bunheads") will be performing in the first of four special shows featuring different artists on PBS's "Live from Lincoln Center" Friday.
The actress and her husband adopted a baby girl a year ago. "I waited later in life to start a family, and I'm so glad I did in many ways because I never would have been ready," she says.
"I still am, like, 'Ugh.' The coolest thing is that my best friend has a baby that's seven weeks older than my daughter. And so we are going through it together ... We couldn't have planned it better even though we tried. We tried to plan it as much as we could. It's been this incredible journey with me and my husband as well. People try to give you all of this advice and try to prepare you, and it's really this: You are a single person, you get married, you become a unit, and then you invite this little human, another human, into your life. And then you kind of break apart, and you come back together, and you create this family."
NORTON RE-UPS FOR ONE MORE SEASON
The good news is James Norton will be back for one more season of "Grantchester," which airs on "Masterpiece Mystery!" The bad news is this will be his last one. The executive producer of the PBS show assures fans there will be more "Grantchesters" after Norton turns his backward collar over to some other vicar. Norton admits that he likes to keep on the move.
"I'm the kind of person if I go on holiday one place, I have to go to a different place the next year. It's that inquisitive nature. And you get the wonderful privilege of learning all the time because you're constantly placed in these other head-spaces and these other situations and these periods ..."
WALSH TO PURSUE CRIMINALS IN NEW VENTURE
America's intrepid crime hunter John Walsh will be joining Investigation Discovery on a new show that will enlist the audience's help the way his series "America's Most Wanted" did. Since his 6-year-old son was kidnapped and killed, Walsh has been on a mission to help solve some of the nation's most harrowing crimes. "In Pursuit with John Walsh" will follow up on unsolved cases featuring a call center where vigilant viewers can report any cogent information they might uncover. The show will premiere sometime next year.
