Ryan Gosling Says He 'Realised' He Wanted Kids After Meeting Eva Mendes

Ryan Gosling offered some rare insight into his ultra-private relationship with Eva Mendes and their two daughters, Esmeralda and Amada.

In a new interview with GQ, the Barbie star reflected on meeting his future partner on the set of 2012 film The Place Beyond the Pines—and how that fortuitous introduction got him thinking about starting his own family for the first time.

'When you asked me about Eva and kids, I think I said, I didn’t think about kids until she told me she was pregnant. That’s not really true. I didn’t want to overshare, but now I also don’t want to misrepresent,' Gosling said. 'I mean, it’s true that I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her, but after I met Eva, I realised that I just didn’t want to have kids without her. And 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 realised that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.'

Gosling and Mendes welcomed Esmeralda in 2014. Their second daughter, Amada, was born in 2016.

Gosling and Mendes don’t have a nanny, so the actor prioritizes quality time with his kids by bringing them with him on location during his film projects or by committing to just one movie per year.

'I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them,' he said, adding that he 'would never want to go back' to life before having kids. 'I’m glad I didn’t have control over my destiny in that way, because it was so much better than I ever had dreamed for myself.'

He also praised Mendes’s parenting skills. “I just lean on Eva,” he continued. 'She knows what’s important, always. She just somehow knows. So if ever I’m in my head about it, I just ask her.'

Chelsey Sanchez

Editor

Chelsey Sanchez is an editor at Harper’s Bazaar, where she writes about any and all things related to culture and entertainment. Previously, she has covered pop culture and politics for outlets like The Atlantic, Flaunt, and The Indypendent. She feels very strongly about Jane Austen adaptations.