In Matthew Rhys’ new TV show Widow’s Bay the actor plays Mayor Tom Loftis, a man who hopes to improve the tourism industry and therefore the future of his teenage son. Playing the doting father came easily to Matthew, who, in real life, is a doting father to his nine-year-old son, Sam, whom he shares with partner Keri Russell, as well as a stepfather to two teenagers. 

He tells HELLO! that Tom’s relationship with his own father lit a “fire in Tom to prove himself” and is reflected in Tom’s “own relationship with his son.”

“Tom doesn’t want [to make] the same mistakes,” says Matthew, a feeling he calls “universal” and one that all fathers go through.

When asked how he imparted his own personal experience onto the character of Tom, he jokes: “For me, on screen, I don’t shout as much as I do in real life at the kids.  I was always shouting those lines at my on-screen son until Katie [Dippold, showrunner] was like, ‘No, you don’t shout those lines at your son.'”

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Widow’s Bay is a horror-comedy set on the fictional island of Widow’s Bay, off the coast of New England. The Americans actor plays the loal mayor, whose actions make the locals apprehensive – and soon we discover for good reason.  

The new 10-part Apple TV series “is full of terrifying jump scares, hitting every folk trope you can think of – the boogeyman, the sea hag, demonic possession, murderous clowns, haunted inns, and hidden passageways under the town,” reads HELLO!’s review.

“Luckily, the first half of the season has a more comedy-filled pace; Katie Dippold’s script has such perfect comedic timing, brought to life by Matthew and his co-stars Kate O’Fynn and Stephen Root, that the genuinely discomforting moments are quickly alleviated, welcoming you into this weirdly wonderful world.” 

Both Matthew and co-star Kate O’Flynn are from the British Isles – Matthew from Cardiff, Wales, and Kate from Bury, England – and Matthew says that tapping into British gallows humor helped him.

“What I always appreciate about Katie [Dippold]’s writing is her use of humor, especially when it comes in very dramatic moments or very horrific moments. It strips the sentimentality away from it, and I think that’s what Brits almost always adhere to: the stripping away of sentimentality,” he adds.

Barry star Stephen Root stars as Wyck, a local who is Matthew’s adversary in the early episodes, and he tells HELLO! that it was because of Matthew – whom he worked with in Perry Mason – that he wanted to be involved.

“That really was a draw because I had such a good time working with him before on Perry Mason,” he says. “But t was also the whole kit and caboodle with the beautiful scripts, [director] Hiro Marai, who I’d worked with before on Barry, and all these fantastic people were doing it. It was almost a no-brainer.”

When the cast took part in their first table read, Stephen says it immediately felt like they were “all on the same page, all doing the same play, and that was a big deal”.

“The interweaving of [these characters] all with the same goals but different ways of going about it, you knew there’d be great conflict coming from that to make great drama,” says Matthew. “Add the fact that you would laugh out loud reading it and also gasp with the more horrific moments… you just hope the audience would have the same experience in watching that we had reading and executing.”