Matthew Rhys - My American (So Back Off!)

Reader, I married him. 

Okay, so that was the end of Jane Eyre, and this was May 2013, and the man I was marrying knew nothing about it, but you can’t have everything.

   

But my New Best Friend on board, Jen, officiated. The rings were made of champagne foil. And I moved cabins on Virgin Atlantic to force it onto the finger of Matthew Rhys.

   

To bring you up to speed with MY HUSBAND (stand back, ladies, or I will shoot). Several years ago, I pondered, in this blog, whether the man actually existed, so difficult had my attempts been even to catch a glimpse of him. Then, suddenly, he appeared in the King’s Head in Santa Monica for a rugby match on the TV; two days later, I met him again at a St David’s Day event he organised in LA.

   

This week, he appeared yet again in my life. I was not Stalking by Air, I promise; it really was an accident. I was at the bar on a Virgin Atlantic flight back to LA and telling my NBF about why some UK actors made it big in Hollywood and others didn’t. Talent, charisma, good looks, an ability to get on with others, that extra something that you can’t just put your finger on – the IT Factor. Like Matthew Rhys,” I said.

  

“Oh, he’s on board,” she said. “Just back there.” Well, I tell you, I was up that aisle quicker than you could say Fasten Your Seatbelts.

   

The man who is to be the new Darcy in the sequel to the Jane Austen classic, Pride and Prejudice, was, indeed, there. They practically had to call the paramedics to me. Handsome, dark tousled hair, beautiful eyes, perfect mouth . . . Honestly, if the plane plummets now, I thought, I will die a happy woman. My only worry was that he would usurp me in the South Wales Echo headline – “Hollywood actor goes down” – that sort of thing (in my dreams! . . . By the way, is anyone swallowing (as it were) that Michael Douglas excuse for his throat cancer?).  

   

This week, Rhys came to our screens in The Americans, and he is nothing short of brilliant (as is the show). After five seasons of Brothers and Sisters, playing gay Kevin Walker, Rhys is being heavily tipped to win major awards for his portrayal of a KGB spy living a “normal”, suburban life in the US.

   

It has to be said that Russian spies have never looked so sexy. 

No overcoats, no two octaves below par accents, and at least 30 years younger than his predecessors, Rhys (unlike Austin Powers) is The Spy You Want to S**g.

Sorry. Someone had to say it. 

And he’s my husband. 

So join the queue, bitch!