Matthew Rhys "cries a lot easier" now he's a dad.

The 50-year-old actor - who has eight-year-old son Sam with partner Keri Russell - admitted parenthood helped him prepare for his latest role in 'Hallow Road', in which he plays a concerned father facing a race against time to help his daughter following a car accident, because he could understand the emotions felt by his character.

He said: "I think once you do become a parent and you do allow yourself those thoughts ... the thought of having a child go through what happens in the film is horrifying so all you have to do is allow yourself the real thought of it.

"I cry a lot easier these days since I became a father for reasons I don't know why."

And the 'Americans' star - who has also helped raise Keri's two children, River, 17, and 12-year-old Willa - joked there were also similarities because of being parents to a new young driver.

He said: "[River] has passed his [driving] test in New York, God Bless him. I think if he can drive there he can drive anywhere."

Matthew and Keri fell for one another while playing Soviet spies posing as a married couple in 'The Americans' - which ran for six seasons between 2013 and 2018 - but he recently admitted the pair are now like "ships passing in the night" as their work schedules rarely line up together because they feel it is important for one of them to be at home.

He told People magazine: "What we try to do is - how many of our friends do it - one works when the other one doesn't [so there is always] a parent in the house.

"There are moments where you're ships passing in the night to a degree, and that makes it a little tricky.

"But we try not to disrupt home life too much. So that's how we've generally done it. And for the most part, up until now, it seems to work.

"We definitely would work together [again], we've said that before. We've just waited. We always said 'The Americans' was so special, it would have to be something akin that we're both so excited to do. It shouldn't just be anything."