Spooks co-stars Matthew and Keeley marry in secret, a month before their baby is due.
On TV, they inhabit the shadowy world of espionage and counter-terrorism, where stealth and secrecy are paramount.
But for Spooks stars Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes, covert tactics are not confined to the MI5 operations they recreate on the small screen – for the pair have married in a ceremony so secret it would do their spy characters proud.
Not even their closest family were present at last week’s low-key register office wedding, which came just a month before 28-year-old Keeley is due to give birth to the couple’s first child.
Instead, Macfadyen asked only his Spooks colleague Peter Firth, who plays counterterrorism boss Harry Pearce in the BBC drama, to be his best man and witness.
The ceremony marks a happy ending to an unsettled two years since the start of their relationship.
The couple met on the Spooks set in 2002 shortly after Keeley married cartoonist Spencer McCallum, with whom she has a fouryearold son, Myles.
The marriage appeared happy, with the actress, who plays MI5 operative Zoe Reynolds, telling an interviewer it made her feel ‘more secure’, although she added: ‘It does seem funny when I say “my husband”, though. I still can’t seem to get used to it.’ Indeed she couldn’t: colleagues were stunned when, just months into filming, she was photographed passionately kissing Macfadyen in public.
The BBC later said she split from her husband before her affair with Macfadyen began.
Since then, the couple have remained tight-lipped about their relationship.
When an interviewer asked 29-year-old Macfadyen, whose character Tom Quinn has just been written out of the series, if he was planning to marry Keeley, he snapped: ‘Next question.’ But that changed last week when the couple, who live together in a cottage in Twickenham, West London, attended the register office in nearby Richmond upon Thames.
Close friends say this was almost the first chance they had to tie the knot.
Keeley’s divorce was finalised only in June, and Macfadyen has been busy filming a new version of Pride and Prejudice, in which he plays Mr Darcy opposite Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Bennet. Keeley asked her friend Kellie Bright, best known as the voice of Kate Aldridge in The Archers and for her role as ‘Me Julie’ in Ali G Indahouse, to act as bridesmaid.
Like the wedding, the honeymoon was also low-key. The couple were pictured cuddling at an East London theatre the day after the ceremony.
A friend of the couple told The Mail on Sunday: ‘They are very excited about the baby and it seemed to be the right moment for them to get married. It would have been very hard for them to tie the knot before they did because of Matthew’s schedule.’
‘But they were keen to be married before the baby is born. It’s a bit of a watershed for both of them. Both are leaving Spooks and this is another sign they are moving on.’ Speaking at the couple’s home yesterday, Macfadyen said: ‘We just decided to have a small register-office wedding. It was just the two of us and we had two witnesses. We didn’t want a big fuss.’
‘The baby is due at Christmas.’
‘We are really looking forward to it and we’re hoping it goes well.’ Both are being tipped as rising stars in British acting circles.’
Keeley, the daughter of a London taxi driver, has an acting CV that includes the controversial lesbian drama Tipping the Velvet.
She is now poised to move into TV production with her friend, Coupling star Gina Bellman.
Meanwhile, her new husband is being tipped as a Hollywood star once the new Pride and Prejudice is released next year.
The son of an oil industry executive from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, he trained at RADA and has appeared in the Second World War thriller Enigma and the TV drama about New Labour, The Project.
By James Tapper, The Mail on Sunday.
(Source: The Free Articles, KeeleyAndMatt Yahoo group)