(Photo: Getty Images)

Matthew Rhys is back this week in the new season of Perry Mason. He may be playing an American icon, but as fans will know, this affable actor actually hails from Cardiff in Wales. You probably recognize him from his roles in The Americans, Brothers & Sisters, and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, as well as for co-hosting The Wine Show. But here are some things that you may not know about him.

1. He is in a longtime relationship with his The Americans co-star Keri Russell.

Rhys has admitted he was a touch creative with the truth when the couple first got together. "I'd met her 10 years earlier and she didn't remember me, so I clearly didn’t make that much of an impression!" he told Parade. "I do remember lying about what I liked to read, because she was a big reader: 'I love books, too, I love books…' Keri found out, consequently, I know nothing about books. I would just read the Idiot's Guides to whatever she was reading."

2. The couple calls Brooklyn their home.

In 2021, Russell and Rhys were announced as board members of The Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy. "I always thought I'd return to Wales, but when I moved from Los Angeles I only made it as far east as New York," Rhys told Visit Wales. "It still amazes me that my son was born in Brooklyn. One day he’ll look at the Manhattan skyline and think, this is my home, whereas I still think I’m in a Robert de Niro film."

3. He grew up speaking Welsh.

And he is determined to pass on the language – which is spoken by an estimated 900,000 people in Wales – to his young son. "I only speak to him in Welsh, and he understands everything I say," Rhys told Deadline in 2021. "He'll always answer me in English. He'll pepper a few words sometimes in Welsh, I think just to please me. But he's very clear about his Dada's language and then there's Mama's language. So, he knows very clearly about whose is whose."

4. He used to be Santa Monica roommates with fellow Welsh actors Michael Sheen and Ioan Gruffudd.

At the time, their social circle became known as the "LA Tafia" – a play on "taff," an affectionate slang word for Welsh people. "We do have a little Tafia thing and it’s not just actors, but every walk of life," Rhys told The Independent in 2012. "I was shocked by the amount of Welsh people in LA. We'd go to this British pub to watch the Six Nations [rugby] early in the morning and I remember the first time I walked in it was just a sea of red."

5. He trained at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA).

Rhys won a scholarship to attend the prestigious acting school, where his contemporaries included Succession star Matthew Macfadyen. "RADA was a slap in the face," Rhys recalled many years later. "The work rate there is big. I had friends at university and they were doing six hours of lectures every week, but [at RADA] you're doing 12 hours a day sometimes and working Saturdays as well. It wasn't this wild, raucous drinking, having a good time I thought it might have been. But the training is phenomenal, so it's a trade-off."

6. He starred opposite Kathleen Turner in a 2000 West End production of The Graduate.

The acclaimed play included a seduction scene where Turner would remove her clothes, but Rhys was too much of a gentleman to look. "I was just embarrassed," he told The Independent. "It ran for six months and I can honestly say I didn’t look at her once when she was naked. I always thought that a) I can’t look at her because she's going to think ‘You little perv,' and b) I didn’t want to because of… Welsh nerves. I hope she didn't take it badly."

7. He was in the last-ever episode of Columbo.

Yes, really: Rhys played the baddie in the feature-length 2003 special "Columbo Likes the Nightlife." During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, he admitted that he originally tried to put on a Cockney accent for the role, before the show's star Peter Falk suggested he might be better off making his villain Welsh.

8. He found making The Wine Show trickier than you might expect.

Rhys teamed with Matthew Goode for this lovely Sundance Now series in which they tried everything from Picpoul de Pinet to Pinot Noir. It sounds like a lot of fun, but as Rhys told The Takeout, tasting wine all day while staying lucid is a challenge. "When you start drinking wine at 8.30 in the morning and stop drinking wine at 6pm, and the producer in mid-day is saying things like, 'You know, you've got to stop slurring, and you've got to say something else apart from 'It's a really nice wine,' I found it hard," he admitted.

9. He calls Sally Field his acting mentor.

Rhys starred opposite the two-time Oscar winner in Brothers & Sisters, and it was definitely a formative experience for him.  "It was a number of things; it has to do with a work ethic," he told Weekender. "She taught me about the discipline [necessary]. You can't just joke around in those moments. You have to stay focused, be prepared. Every aspect of it really: your script breakdown, knowing where you are coming from, knowing where you are going."

10. He owns his own antique boat.

Rhys spent a cool $30,000 renovating the 1930s boat, which is named Rarebit and available for hire from New York Harbor. "People can play out their Hemingway fantasies, 1930s fantasies, or simply charter a very unique, pretty wood boat. It's intimate, we only take six people out," Rhys told Time Out. 

(Photo: @moveablefeastny / Instagram)

Do you have a favorite Matthew Rhys role?