At work, the cast members of The Diplomat are busy taking on global political issues, but at home, they’re rising to the occasion as parents.
The Debora Cahn-created Netflix drama stars Keri Russell as U.S. diplomat Kate Wyler, who navigates her new role as ambassador to the United Kingdom amid an increasingly hostile international crisis and her own personal problems. The series, which premiered in 2023, has gone on to receive numerous accolades, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series and several acting nods for Russell.
Ahead of the third season — which premiered in October 2025 — The Diplomat has already been renewed for a fourth season, promising a whole new advent of drama across both sides of the pond.
In the series, Kate and Hal (Rufus Sewell) do not have children, instead choosing to focus on their careers. But off-screen, Russell is a mom to three kids — River, Willa and Sam — balancing work and parenting duties with her partner, Matthew Rhys, and ex-husband, Shane Deary.
“I get to work really hard for three months, but then I get to be home for four months where I get to put [River] to bed every night,” she told PEOPLE in 2012. “I like getting to be in the adult world a little bit and then getting to be in the mom world and cook dinners. And, for me, that balance is what makes it nice.”
Here’s everything to know about the kids of The Diplomat cast.
01 of 05
Keri Russell’s 3 Children
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Keri Russell attends the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 07, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California.
Russell may play ambitious U.S. ambassador Kate Wyler on The Diplomat, but at home, she’s best-known as a loving mom of three. The actress shares two children — son River, born in 2007, and daughter Willa, born in 2012 — with Deary.
Following her 2013 separation and subsequent divorce from Deary, Russell welcomed her youngest, a son named Sam, with her The Americans costar-turned husband Rhys in 2016.
When reflecting on motherhood in a June 2017 interview with PEOPLE, Russell shared that she’s become more “vulnerable” since having children.
“You do the best you can every single day, and some days are bad days,” she said. “I feel like people need to remember that more.”
02 of 05
Rufus Sewell’s 2 Children
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Rufus Sewell attends the 30th Annual Critics Choice Awards on February 07, 2025 in Santa Monica, California.
While Sewell plays Russell’s on-screen husband in The Diplomat, in real life, the actor is a father to two children: William “Billy” and Lola.
The The Holiday star and ex-wife Amy Gardner welcomed Billy in 2002. His daughter, Lola, was born in 2013 to Sewell and hairstylist Ami Komai.
In July 2024, Sewell married actress Vivian Benitez at a ceremony in Wales.
Now, Billy appears to be taking after his dad; he’s starred in a short and has narrated a docuseries, per his IMDb.
03 of 05
David Gyasi’s 2 Children
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David Gyasi and son Nathan Gyasi at the “Avatar The Way Of Water” Premiere in London, UK.
Though David Gyasi plays Russell’s ally-turned-potential-love-interest on The Diplomat, in real life, the actor is a proud father of two children with his high school sweetheart Emma Gyasi.
The couple wed on Sept. 11, 1999, and two months later, they welcomed their first child, a daughter named Elèna.
“Part of my story is I had my first child when I was 19, and my wife Emma was 18,” Gyasi, who plays foreign secretary Austin Dennison on the Netflix drama, told Mr Feelgood in August 2023. “Every logical voice was saying, ‘Don’t have this baby.’ We’d just done well in our A-Levels, we were happy, the medical profession was advising us we were too young and had plenty of time to have kids. There was so much noise.”
They later welcomed their son, Nathaniel.
Now, it appears as if Elèna is following in her dad’s footsteps as an actor. She originated the role of Gretchen Wieners in the London cast of Mean Girls: The Musical, for which she won Best Supporting Actress in a Musical at the 2024 Black British Theatre Awards.
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Rory Kinnear and Pandora Colin’s 2 Children
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Pandora Colin and Rory Kinnear attend the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards on February 23, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
A couple both on- and off-screen, Rory Kinnear and Pandora Colin are parents to two children.
The duo, who play Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge and his wife Lydia Trowbridge on The Diplomat, share two children named Riley and Hope.
Kinnear looks up to his own mother, who was a single mom, for her parenting skills.
“Any child of a single parent, if they are in a relationship when they become a parent, thinks, ‘How the hell did you do it alone?’ ” he told The Guardian in August 2017.
05 of 05
Bradley Whitford’s 3 Children
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Bradley Whitford and daughter Mary Louisa and son George attend the premiere of “All The Way” on May 10, 2016 in Hollywood, California.
Bradley Whitford, who joins The Diplomat for its third season as First Gentlemen Tod Penn, shares three children with his ex-wife Jane Kaczmarek: Frances Genevieve, George Edward and Mary Louisa Whitford.
Although Whitford is private about his children, they have popped up in interviews from time to time. During a November 2018 chat with WOSU, one of his kids tried to talk to him while he was speaking with host Peter Sagal.
“Absolutely no respect,” he joked. “One of them said to me once a really devastating thing — said, ‘Come on, Dad. I’ve seen dogs be good in movies.’ And the worst thing about that is that’s an absolutely true statement.”
Whitford and Kaczmarek filed for divorce in 2009 after 16 years of marriage. Whitford began dating his Transparent co-star Amy Landecker in 2015; the couple wed four years later in July 2019.
Read the original article on People
