While Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes generally keep their relationship out of the public eye, Ryan opened up about their family in a rare new interview with GQ magazine. The actor met Eva on the set of The Place Beyond The Pines in 2011, and they went on to have two daughters together. He explained that his four-year break from acting from 2018 until 2022 was so that he could “spend as much time with [them]” as he could.
During the early part of his GQ interview, Ryan said he didn’t envision himself as a father until the moment that Eva told him she was pregnant. “I would never want to go back, you know?” he added. “I’m glad I didn’t have any control over my destiny in that way, because it was so much better than I had ever dreamed for myself.”
However, as the interview went on, Ryan circled back to clarify. “I didn’t want to overshare, but now I also don’t want to misrepresent,” he explained. “I mean, it’s true, I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her. But after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn’t want to have kids without her.”
In The Place Beyond The Pines, Ryan and Eva were “pretending to be a family,” and once filming wrapped, the actor realized that he “didn’t want it to be pretend anymore.” He said, “I realized this would be a life that I would be really lucky to have.” The pair’s first daughter, Esmeralda, was born in 2014, followed by Amada in 2016.
“I just lean on Eva [when it comes to parenting],” Ryan admitted. “She knows what’s important, always. She just somehow knows. So if I’m ever in my head about it, I just ask her.” Ryan and Eva raise their daughters without a nanny. He also said that it wasn’t until after he and Eva got together that he realized that he was “looking” for her. “It all makes sense now,” Ryan concluded.
Back in April, Eva explained why she and Ryan have chosen to keep their relationship private. The two have not walked a red carpet together since they promoted The Place Beyond The Pines in 2012, and Eva said it’s because they’re “not comfortable exposing [their] very private life that [they] value.” However, she added that she’s “still dying” to star in another movie with Ryan. We’ll have to wait and see if that happens!
