Category Articles & Interviews

Sneakers, schmeakers! When it comes to riding a bike, Keri Russell prefers stilettos instead.

“I feel extra summery being on my bike in high heels,” The Americans star, 41, told PeopleStyle after co-hosting the Saks Fifth Avenue & Vogue ‘Kick Off the Summer’ dinner at EMP Summer House in East Hampton, N.Y. last night. “It feels very over-the-top decadent somehow.”

And it’s something the mother of three — to River, 10, Willa, 5 (from her former relationship with carpenter Shane Deary) and Sam, 1 (with her Americans co-star and partner Matthew Rhys) — loves doing all summer long, especially when going out with Rhys.

“[Date night] usually involves night bike-riding, and these days, high heels,” she says. “I just love dressing up. When I was younger, I drove a pickup truck and I wanted to wear boots and jeans everywhere, and as you get older, you’re like, ‘Being a girl is fun.’”

Therefore, it’s no surprise she chose a pair of ankle-tie heels to complete her girly Johanna Ortiz top and ruffle skirt look while hosting the dinner in the Hamptons last night. “I’ve just been so entranced by Johanna Ortiz and what she’s doing lately,” says Russell. “She’s just so fun and it feels so feminine, and so I asked if I could borrow something from her new collection.”

Russell credits costume designer Frank Fleming for helping her choose the two-piece combination. “I met him on a film years and years ago, and now he helps me as a favor as a stylist,” she says. “I kind of have an idea of what I want and then Frank makes it better, always. He always leads me down the right path.”

Her transition from a tomboy to feminine style isn’t the only major change she’s made in her 40s. The former poster girl for curly hair — Felicity Porter for life — is now obsessed with Keratin hair treatments. “I get it once or twice a year and it’s a dream come true,” she says. “It’s everything to a curly haired girl, because you don’t have to blow it out, you don’t have to do all these things to it — nothing. It can be wet and you can walk out the door and it looks good.”

And it especially comes in handy being a busy mom: “It’s a life-changer, and a time-saver,” she says. “There’s no time to brush your teeth, let alone blow dry your hair!”

Source: http://people.com/

In the red-hot race for Best Drama Actress, most of Gold Derby’s Emmy experts are split between Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and Claire Foy (“The Crown”). However, one expert — Kerr Lordygan (Rotten Tomatoes) — goes rogue in predicting that Keri Russell will win for her long-running character of Elizabeth Jennings on FX’s Russian spy drama “The Americans.” It took four years for Emmy voters to nominate Russell, Matthew Rhys and “The Americans” in the drama races, and now increased buzz and attention could bring Russell her first victory.

In Russell’s favor is the fact that she’s constantly going undercover as Elizabeth, so she gets to play many different versions of the same character. That’s like catnip to Emmy voters, who love seeing performers show their range and versatility. Just last year fan favorite Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”) won for playing multiple clones, with different looks, accents and personalities. With Maslany out of contention this year, might Russell benefit? Eighteen of our 20 experts think that Russell will at least be nominated, though only Lordygan forecasts that she’ll win.

Source: http://www.goldderby.com/

As FX’s critically acclaimed drama “The Americans” heads toward its final season, the show’s creators Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields came to the ATX TV Festival to discuss their approach to the last ten episodes, but managed to artfully evade revealing too much about the fates of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings and their family.

Fields and Weisberg admitted that with all the talk of Russia in the news, they often devoted lunch hours to talking politics, but current events didn’t spill over into the plotlines. “When we write the show, we’re in a bubble,” said Weisberg, in the panel moderated by Variety‘s executive editor of TV Debra Birnbaum. “We don’t want people watching and thinking those clever writers put something there about Donald Trump.”

Fields said that the recent headlines of Russians spying on Americans and tampering with elections did impact them. “We’ve spent years learning how good the Russians were at this kind of spy craft,” he said “To see it play out on the news now at this high level is staggering.” Weisberg added, “When the show started, things were peaceful with Russia. We thought we’d humanize people who were thought to be our enemy, and now, a few years later, people are foaming at the mouth about them.” Continue reading The Americans’ EPs Talk ‘Action-Packed and Emotion-Packed’ Final Season

One thing that makes FX’s lauded Cold War drama “The Americans” so compelling is the chemistry between Keri Russell, who starred in four seasons of “Felicity” in her early 20s, and Welsh actor Matthew Rhys. As Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Russian spies living as Americans in 1980s suburbia, they make their kids’ lunches and then slip away to don disguises, seduce sources and break necks for the Motherland.

But Russell and Rhys’ electricity on the show, created by former CIA officer Joe Weisberg and just having finished its fifth season before a 10-episode sprint to a series finale, is nothing compared to the sparks they throw off in real life.

Settling into the series’ writers room in gritty Gowanus in New York’s Brooklyn, surrounded by whiteboards with scribbled plot points and grainy show stills, the couple, who have an infant son (Russell also has two children from a previous relationship), are clearly simpatico — finishing each other’s thoughts and cracking each other up.

Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings and Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings on “The Americans.”
Continue reading The Americans and its stars forge on — who knew Russian spies could be so relevant?

Together onscreen and off! Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are gearing up for the sixth and final season of playing spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings in The Americans.

While catching up with Us Weekly at the 10th annual Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic in Jersey City, New Jersey, on Saturday, June 3, Russell, 41, said that she knows how the FX series concludes and that she’s “very satisfied” with the ending. “They’ve done such a good job so far — the writers — so I’m willing to give it up and let them do what they want,” she said.

Although the real-life couple, who welcomed son Sam in May 2016, will miss working together every day, Rhys, 42, is looking on the bright side. “The glory is we will be with each other every day,” he told Us.

It’s not all business when they’re filming together, though. The actress revealed that the duo goof around on set while transforming into the different personas as their characters go undercover. “What’s cool about doing all these crazy disguises is that it takes time with the different clothes and the weird hair, and we make fun of each other,” Russell said.

Rhys added, “It’s what we’ve kind of come to enjoy most about the show is the diversity it throws up and those daily challenges of playing three people in the morning or eight people in a day.”

Rhys also said it’s been fun to go back in time for the 1980s-set show — and that the young actors are amazed by the old-school technology. “I remember when Keidrich [Sellati, who plays his son, Henry] came into the living room for the first time, he went up to the VCR and went, ‘What is that?’ He’d never seen a VHS eject a tape,” Rhys joked. “He thought it was witchcraft.”

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/

Keri Russell earned her first Emmy nomination last year for playing a deadly K.G.B. Russian spy living in 1980s America on FX’s critically acclaimed series The Americans. Russell is expected to nab another nod this year for her emotional and multi-layered performance in the fifth season of the series, which wrapped on May 30. With the show’s Cold War era themes loosely mirroring the current, tense political climate, one may wonder, have Donald Trump’s alleged ties with Russia had any impact on the show?

“Donald Trump subliminally does sort of go in a little bit and affect how people may experience the show,” Russell told Vanity Fair during Saturday’s 10th annual Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic at Liberty State Park, New Jersey. “He’s made the show become more topical. The great thing about the show—we have the protection that it’s a period piece set in the 80s, but in real life, it’s scary. There’s no protection from him.”

Even Russell’s precocious daughter, Willa, is getting wise to the constant stream of news reports about Trump often seeming to flout rules and norms.

“Our five-year-old said this morning while I had NPR on about some report on whatever Donald Trump was doing at this hour, and she said, ‘That’s not fair! Why does Donald Trump get to do everything that he wants to do?’ And I said, ‘Exactly!’ And she said, ‘Well, I want to go to Disney World. I don’t get to go.’ But I was like, ‘Exactly. Not everyone gets what they want.’ But she said, ‘Donald Trump does!’ And I go, ‘You’re right. It’s a bummer. He’s not playing by any rules. No rules.’ ”

When asked how she and her real-life partner, Americans co-star Matthew Rhys, are raising their three young children in the Trump era, Russell admits it’s a daunting task.

“It’s difficult. There’s a lot of human rights being taken away and a threat to the environment,” said Russell. “It’s shocking, and I just hope it will be over soon.”

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are more than just partners in international espionage on FX’s The Americans — they’re real-life partners in love.

Arriving at For Your Consideration: The Americans, an event run by the Emmy’s to showcase potential nominees, Russell and Rhys greeted press, members of the Television Academy and some lucky fans.

Speaking with PEOPLE about making their real-life relationship work, Russell admitted that they “absolutely” need alone time since they spend the majority of their days together.

Rhys also expressed his gratitude for Russell’s positive attitude. “She has the patience of a saint, so that helps,” he said. “That is basically it.”

Of course, that isn’t the only thing to credit for their model relationship.

“And alcohol,” Rhys added with a laugh. “The great leveler, the great equalizer. Everything is so much better after a good, solid half bottle of red wine!”

This method appears to be working quite well for the happy couple, who have been together since the first season of their hit Cold War spy drama, The Americans, back in 2013.

Just over a year ago, in May 2016, the couple welcomed their first child, a boy named Sam. Their young son is a first for Rhys, who is new to fatherhood, and the third child of Russell, who has two children, River and Willa, from a former marriage to carpenter Shane Deary.

The fifth, penultimate season of The Americans ended this last Tuesday on FX.

Source: http://people.com