Eva Mendes Says She Stepped Away From Acting Because Ryan Gosling Is Too Good at His Job

Longtime partners Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling famously met while filming the crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines in 2011 and began dating soon after. The couple then worked together on Gosling's 2014 directorial debut Lost River, but following that, the 50-year-old actress has largely stepped away from the spotlight after giving birth to their two children.

And in a rare sit-down on the Today show this week, the Hitch actress elaborated on the "no brainer" reason it made sense for her to stay home while Gosling continued acting.

"I’ve never experienced anything like that," Mendes said of her partner's work ethic. "The way he works, his commitment to his craft, how he wants to make everything as best as it can be, and that means making his costars as best as they can be. But unfortunately, or fortunately, there's only one Ryan, so you know, I pretty much stopped acting after that."

"It was like a no-brainer," she continued. "I'm so lucky, and I was like, if I can have this time with my children—and I still work, I just didn't act—because acting takes you on locations, it takes you away, it was just like a non-verbal agreement... OK, he's gonna work and I'm gonna work. I'm just gonna work here."

Mendes has always been forthcoming about her decision to take a hiatus from acting to raise her daughters with Gosling, now 7 and 9 (who inadvertently helped inspire his performance as Ken in last summer's Barbie). "I wanted to be home with my babies and fortunately my other business ventures allowed me to do that more than acting would," she wrote in an October 2022 Instagram post.

"Also, I was not excited about the stereotypical roles being offered to me at the time," she continued, adding that Lost River was a "dream project" and a "tough act to follow."

The Miami native also opened up about her reaction to Gosling's performance of "I'm Just Ken" at the Oscars earlier this month, joking that it was time to come home to put the kids to bed following the A-list ceremony.

"He went and he did his job, and he just happens to be really good at his job. And he did it and he came home," Mendes quipped. "Because that's what it's about. You go, you do your job the best you can, and then you come home."