Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Sun 18 October 2026 12:30, UK
A word-of-mouth hit is a bit quicker to achieve now that we live in an entirely connected world, but it still took a couple of months to start hearing “Have you watched Widow’s Bay yet?” from everyone you knew, as the spooky yet smart comedy starring Matthew Rhys became the show of choice for those in the know.
And you can see why, because it had everything you needed to get the streaming numbers going through the roof (not that the internet has a roof), and it soon topped the charts on Apple TV around the globe, before breaking records at the Emmys in September, winning more awards in a single year than any comedy series in history.
A big part of that is down to Rhys’s brilliant central performance as Widow’s Bay’s long-suffering mayor in the half-funny, half-horrifying series, and if ever there was an actor you could legitimately describe as being at the absolute top of their game, it is him, right now.
Which is saying something, given he was, together with his partner Keri Russell, the star of FX’s frankly insanely good The Americans, which ended eight years ago and which people are still discovering. The Welshman deservedly picked up two of his four Golden Globe nominations and an Emmy for his work over six seasons of the Cold War spy drama, and it marked the culmination of a career that had begun in the late 1990s with a small role in Anthony Hopkins’s drama Titus. Via parts on stage and screen in the UK, he ended up moving to the US to star in the network drama Brothers and Sisters.
He made five seasons of that and in the 15 years since has starred in dozens of different projects, mostly TV series. But he isn’t completely satisfied, as he told the New York Times earlier this year when asked about any regrets he had so far. Rhys explained: “I was never choosy. Almost throughout my entire 20s, it was never a choice. There’s only one job I turned down that, to this day, I bitterly regret, which was to play Hamlet.”
Rhys felt his relative inexperience led him to pass up one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters, adding, “I was 24, and it felt like a mountain I was too young to climb.”
“I don’t have the emotional maturity to play Hamlet at 24. And now, sadly, the day has passed. I’ll never get that chance again.”
Matthew Rhys
But thanks to his work on stage, Rhys has got close. In 2025, he starred in the Welsh National Theatre’s production of Playing Burton, the story of Rhys’s acting hero and fellow Welshman Richard Burton that tracked his ascent to Hollywood royalty from the poorest of upbringings in the valleys of south Wales, including his battle with alcoholism and tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. The play included a sizable section on Burton starring as Hamlet on two occasions in the 1950s and 1960s in London and on Broadway.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Not that Rhys needs to look back on any choices with remorse; not only did he win the Emmy this year for Widow’s Bay, he also picked up the award for ‘Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series’ for The Beast in Me, the psychological thriller from Netflix which co-starred Homeland’s Claire Danes.
Meanwhile, production on Widow’s Bay season two is expected to start around April 2027, with a likely Apple TV release in 2028.
