Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes Make First Official Appearance Together in Over a Decade
Eva Mendes is in crazy, stupid love with Ryan Gosling.
The Hitch alum wore her heart on her sleeve during her surprise cameo at her longtime partner’s March 5 appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, donning on the same striped sweater Ryan sported in a recent Jeopardy! clip promoting his upcoming flick Project Hail Mary.
Clad in the blue cardigan made by Louis Vuitton, Eva was escorted from backstage as Ryan led a birthday sing-along in honor of her 52nd birthday.
“You might find me in the Hudson River tomorrow,” Ryan, 45, quipped to host Jimmy Fallon, before taking Eva by the hand and saying, “Hi, sweetheart.”
And after she as serenaded by audience members backed by a high school marching band, Eva planted multiple sweet kisses on Ryan’s cheek to show her gratitude.
Elsewhere during Ryan’s appearance on the late-night talk show, the Barbie actor played a hilarious video in which he had an engaging conversation with an Alexa device about Eva, with whom he shares daughters Esmeralda, 11, and Amada, 9.
“That Eva Mendes is great, isn’t she?” Ryan—also pictured wearing the striped sweater—quipped to the Amazon virtual assistant, which replied, “Absolutely. She’s got this incredible range that people don’t always give her credit for.”
Ryan was also amused when Alexa name-dropped him while complimenting Eva’s “beautiful performance” in the couple’s 2012 movie The Place Beyond the Pines.
“Plus, she’s been smart about stepping back from acting to focus on family, which shows she’s got her priorities straight,” the device said of the actress, prompting Ryan to respond, “I couldn’t agree more.”
Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
Indeed, Ryan has been open about his love for Eva. Despite being notoriously private about their home life, he can’t help but to sing her praises whenever the opportunity arises.
Take his Jeopardy! spoof, in which he sent a sweet note to Eva when answering a Final Jeopardy clue reading: “This specific type of injury has made the news at least since 1967 when it happened to Red Sox star Jim Lonborg.”
“What is… IDK?” he jokingly wrote, adding in the margin, “I [heart] Eva.”
For more of Ryan and Eva’s cutest moments, keep reading…
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Their Place Beyond the Pines
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes started dating shortly after playing a couple in their 2012 crime drama A Place Beyond the Pines.
“I know that I’m with the person I’m supposed to be with,” Ryan told Hello three years after the movie’s release, adding that his favorite quality about his partner is that “she’s Eva Mendes.”
As he put it, “There’s nothing else I’m looking for.”
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On Cloud Nine
For Ryan, life with Eva and their daughters Esmeralda and Amada is “heaven.”
“It’s like walking through a field of flowers every day,” he gushed during a 2016 appearance on Good Morning America. “I live with angels. It’s a ray of sunshine in a dark time.”
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La La Love
Ryan dedicated his 2017 Golden Globes win for La La Land to Eva—and her late brother Juan Carlos Méndez Jr.—saying in his acceptance speech, “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.”
“If she hadn’t have taken all that on so that I could have this experience, it would surely be someone else up here other than me today,” continued Ryan. “So sweetheart, thank you.”
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Oh Baby
For most of her life, Eva thought she would never become a mother. Then, according to the Hitch actress, “Ryan Gosling happened.”
“I mean, falling in love with him,” she told Women’s Health in 2019. “Then it made sense for me to have…not kids, but his kids. It was very specific to him.”
Instagram/Eva Mendes
Parental Duties
Of her life with Ryan as parents to two young girls, Eva joked to Access in 2019, “It’s so fun and beautiful and maddening.”
“It’s so hard, of course,” she noted. “You end your day, you put them to bed and Ryan and I kind of look at each other like, ‘We did it, we did it. We came out relatively unscathed.'”
Robert Kamau/GC Images
Staying Private in a Public Space
Eva got candid about the couple’s decision to keep their home life out of the spotlight, writing to a fan on Instagram in May 2020, “I don’t talk about Ryan and all the wonderful things he does as a father because I keep that part private.”
“I feel it’s best that I continue to disclose what I’m comfortable with but not involve him or my kids too much,” she continued. “Does that make sense? Hope so. Because this is my honest answer.”
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Building a Family
Likewise, Ryan didn’t really have baby on the brain until Eva came along.
“I mean, it’s true that I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her,” the Drive star admitted in a 2023 GQ interview, “but after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn’t want to have kids without her.”
In fact, Ryan said “there were moments on The Place Beyond the Pines where we were pretending to be a family, and I didn’t really want it to be pretend anymore. I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.”
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Mama Knows Best
When it comes to parenting, Ryan also admittedly looks to his longtime love.
“I just lean on Eva,” he told GQ in 2023. “She knows what’s important, always. She just somehow knows. So if ever I’m in my head about it, I just ask her.”
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Finding the One
Reflecting on his life before Eva, the Notebook alum said in the same interview, “I was looking for her, you know?”
He added, “But it all makes sense now.”
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Feel the Kenergy
Eva let the world know that Ryan is more than kenough following the success of Barbie. Reflecting on the “hate when he took on this role,” the actress wrote on Instagram in January 2024, “So proud of my man.”
“Despite all the #Notmyken ridicule and articles written about him, he created this completely original, hilarious, heartbreaking, now iconic character,” she added, “and took it all the way to Oscars.”
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Best Costars
Working with Ryan on The Place Beyond the Pines changed Eva’s life in more ways than one. As she explained of his approach to acting during a March 2024 Today appearance, “I’ve never experienced anything like that.”
“The way he works, his commitment to his craft, how he wants to make everything as best as it can be,” the Girl in Progress star shared, “and that means making his costars as best as they can be.”
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Lessons Learned
But for Ryan, Eva is the one doling out the acting lessons.
“She has really become the best acting coach I have ever had,” he raved to Extra in May 2024. “It’s endless how she helps me”
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