Since 2011, Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling have had a super-secretive romance. While there's
not a whole lot of information out there, here's all we do know about Hollywood's most
intensely private lovebirds.
It's not hard to understand why hot Hollywood stars fall in love during the long months
of filming major motion pictures. Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes did just that in 2011 on the
set of the indie drama The Place Beyond the Pines. Gosling plays a cash-strapped traveling
motorcycle stuntman who gets caught up in a bank robbery scheme after he learns he has
a son with a small-town waitress, played by Mendes.
An anonymous source told Us Weekly,
"It hasn't been a secret how excited Eva's been to film with him, and she's always joked
with us about how gorgeous he is. She's never been shy about having the hots for him!"
The stars were friends before filming began and Mendes says she did initially try to resist
mixing business with pleasure, revealing on The Kelly Clarkson Show that she kept telling
herself she wasn't in love with him in an effort to stay professional.
"That's literally me going, like, 'I'm not in love with him. I'm not in love with him.'"
Regardless, a magical kingdom of passion unfolded during filming as the two were spotted taking
a very method-acting approach at Disneyland.
An alleged witness told Us Weekly,
"They were very playful. Eva was skipping around like a little girl. [...] She would
lean into him and she held his arm the entire time."
Some celebrity couples have admitted they conspire with paparazzi to publicize their
fake spontaneous romantic dates. Reality star Spencer Pratt even told The Sun in 2021 that
Kim Kardashian copied Heidi Montag's proven business model of alerting the media to their
whereabouts.
This is not the life Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes wanted or needed. Both were mega-movie
stars in their own right before hooking up, and they're a bit old-fashioned, so don't
expect the film rights to their growing brood to be scooped up by Ryan Seacrest or the like.
In response to a fan asking why she doesn't post personal photos on her account, Mendes
wrote on Instagram,
"As far as Ryan and I, it just works for us this way to stay private. I have always had
a clear boundary when it comes to my man and my kids. I'll talk about them, of course,
with limits, but I won't post pictures of our daily life. [...] And since my children
are so little and don't understand what posting their image really means, I don't have their
consent. And I won't post their image until they're old enough to give consent."
It hasn't been so long since Eva Mendes was Hollywood's absolute It girl. Her 2005 romantic
comedy Hitch with Will Smith smashed opening weekend records for the rom-com genre, according
to Box Office Mojo. The film grossed a staggering $371 million. Even when her acting career
was mostly wrapped up, so in demand was that one-of-a-kind face, she still inked a deal
with the biggest cosmetics brand in the world, Estée Lauder's, in 2015.
Even though she comes from a big family herself, Mendes says she was always career-focused
first.
She told Nova 96.9's Fitzy & Wippa,
"I was lucky enough to work my bum off for 20 years."
But the star waited so long to start a family, she almost missed her chance. All that changed
when she and Ryan Gosling fell in love in 2011. Gosling was 32, Mendes was 38, and time
was of the essence. They quickly got to work.
She said on the radio show,
"I never wanted babies before, until I fell in love with Ryan, and it kind of worked out
to where I was 40 and having my first baby. I think I was 42 for the second one, so it
worked out in that way that I had a career and then I [changed] my focus to my family."
Rumors Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes were having their first child started oddly, in 2014 when
the actor was spotted at an airport avoiding the X-Ray security devices. The star laughed
off those reports, claiming her avoidance of that high-intensity spectrum of light was
mostly about modesty, and a little about personal safety.
She said on The Ellen Show,
"They basically see you naked, right? And not only that, but there's a radiation aspect
to it, so I always opt-out." However, by July of that year outlets like
Us Weekly had sources saying the then 40-year-old actor was in fact pregnant — and expecting
soon — claiming she was seven months along. TMZ finally confirmed the baby news in October
2014. So perhaps Mendes didn't want to announce her pregnancy on Ellen, given it was so early.
Whatever the exact timeline, Gosling and Mendes had a healthy baby girl and named her after
one of their favorite characters from literary fiction.
Mendes told the skin care company Violet Grey,
"We both love the Esmeralda character from the Victor Hugo novel 'The Hunchback of Notre
Dame' and just think it's a beautiful name."
For Mendes and Gosling, working together was so nice, they did it twice. Following the
cult success and sizzling chemistry of 2012's The Place Beyond the Pines the couple reunited
for another feature, but this time, Gosling was directing.
Mendes says their second project, Lost River, was, quote, "nothing short of a magical experience,"
in an interview with Oprah Daily. And she's very open to doing it all again.
She said in the interview,
"I would love to either act opposite him again or be directed by him at some point. I just
love working with him. In a career of 20+ years, to have my two most incredible creative
experiences be with him, of course, I'd want a third."
Critics were however less enthusiastic about the final product giving Lost River a dire
31% splat rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Regardless, the couple was happy on set. Mendes told Oprah's magazine,
"The two times we've collaborated, him and I, have been the two best experiences in my
career."
"Anything you think I might want to know before I leave here forever, and I never come back?"
The couple has nothing in the works, but Mendes told Access,
"I'd audition for him any day."
In December of 2015, Hollywood's most private couple had one child and was rounding the
three-year mark. Gosling, however, had no doubts as he looked forward to the holiday
with Eva and daughter Esmerelda, telling Hello!,
"This will be our first Christmas where [my daughter] is sort of taking it all in, so
that's exciting."
He even dished a rare personal detail about little Ezzy's musical taste,
"She's obsessed with the Hanson Christmas album! No disrespect to Hanson, they're very
talented kids, but I think I've heard that record enough."
Gosling has a long record of making other men look bad by comparison — like the time
he rescued a journalist from being hit by a car or when he broke up a fight on the streets
of NYC. Of the challenges of fatherhood, Gosling says simply,
"It's not rocket science."
Also an easy equation, his love for Eva. He said,
"I know that I'm with the person I'm supposed to be with."
Gosling's only criteria is, quote, "that she's Eva Mendes. There's nothing else I'm looking
for."
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes managed to have baby number two without an intensely interested
media catching a whiff until they'd already welcomed the new addition to their family.
The couple attended a Saturday Night Live cast party in December 2015 after Gosling
hosted the show while Mendes was around 5 months pregnant. Mendes slyly stayed very
covered when the paparazzi were in sight, and the baby news didn't break!
Of course, TMZ eventually got the deets — but a full two weeks after the birth. The three-mile-zone
gadflies finally obtained little Amada Lee Gosling's birth certificate, who joined the
growing family in April of 2016.
Mendes explained the name of their second daughter is a family homage.
She told Latina magazine,
"My grandmother's name is Amada, and Esmeralda Amada is the name of our oldest."
She went on to explain,
"We had a few names picked out for our new baby, and when she was born, we didn't feel
like those names were her. In true Latin fashion, we reuse names all the time. I actually told
Ryan, 'This is common in Latin culture, so it wouldn't be crazy.'"
Gosling and Mendes have very different backgrounds. Mendes hails from a big, rambunctious Cuban
family. Mendes told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2020,
"One of my earliest memories, around age 11, was having a girlfriend call me. She could
hear my family in the background and said, 'Oh, I'll call you back later, it sounds like
you guys are fighting.' I said, 'No, we're not fighting, we're having dinner!' "
Gosling on the other hand was raised by a single mother and had only his sister at his
side, so being outnumbered by women at home isn't exactly new for him. He explained to
the Wisconsin Gazette in 2015,
"My way of looking at the world was shaped by a female perspective."
In 2016, Gosling described his family life as "a beautiful dream," telling GQ he's found
exactly what he's always been seeking. He said in the interview,
"There's a kind of chaos in it that I love. Maybe in my life I sort of put myself in situations
that were chaotic, outside of my life. And now I have it at home, and I don't have to
go looking for it."
Eva Mendes has not made a film since 2014. Ryan Gosling is obviously tremendously supportive,
but has continued a movie star schedule during the rearing of the couple's girls.
Mendes says she was happy to make this tradeoff. She told The Sydney Morning Herald,
"I feel like, as far as my ambition, it didn't go away, it just shifted onto the children.
I applaud and look up to those women who can do it all, but I'm not one of them."
"Oh gosh, it's so, it's so fun and beautiful, and maddening."
She added a note of gratitude, saying,
"I realize how fortunate I am. [...] I've been so happy to be able to incubate with
my babies, but now, [...] I'm starting to feel like my ambition is coming back."
As early as 2019, Mendes was mulling a movie comeback. She told Oprah Daily,
"It's still totally insane with two children, but now that we are getting out of the baby
and the super young toddler phase, I'm slowly starting to feel human again."
But motherhood, she says, did change the projects she's interested in.
She told Fitzy & Wippa,
"The list is getting shorter and shorter of stuff that I'd do. I don't want to do anything
violent. I don't want to do something risqué. I think the only thing that's left is Disney!"
Ryan Gosling has also stepped into a larger extended family with Eva Mendes. In 2016,
Eva's older brother Carlos Mendes tragically died from cancer. Mendes called their relationship
"rocky at times," but said in an Instagram post honoring his memory,
"He made me tough as nails. And I thank him for that daily."
During Carlo's illness, Gosling was shooting La La Land, for which he won the Golden Globe
for best actor. In a rare public shout-out, Gosling honored Carlos in his speech, saying,
"While I was singing and dancing and playing piano and having one of the best experiences
I've ever had on a film, my lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second, and
trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer. So sweetheart, thank you. And
to my daughters, Amada and Esmeralda, I love you. And if I may, I'd like to dedicate this
to the memory of her brother, Juan Carlos Mendez."
Eva seemed caught off guard by this touching speech. She told The Sydney Morning Herald,
"I was home feeding our six-month-old baby and couldn't even be there that night. I was
in the other room when my sister started screaming for me to come in and she was crying, so we
rewound and watched and it was such a beautiful, surreal moment, especially for my family to
hear Ryan say my brother's name."
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