Having kids was the furthest thing from Eva Mendes' mind. Then 'Ryan Gosling happened'.

Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling have to be one of Hollywood's most private couples. 

Despite being together for a decade and sharing two kids, the couple has fewer public photos taken together than you can count on your hand.

Mendes and Gosling met back in 2011, when they starred in Derek Cianfrance's film, The Place Beyond the Pines. The pair played an estranged couple who shared a son. Soon after, they began dating.

Since then, the pair have worked together on one other film, Lost River, where Gosling made his directorial debut. The 2014 film was the last thing Mendes starred in.

Over the past several years, Mendes has focused on their two young children, and the pair have continued to remain out of the public eye. 

Not only have there been zero photos taken to document either of Mendes' pregnancies but the photos of them as a family are extremely limited. This is a decision Mendes made for herself, admitting she felt her pregnancy felt too "intimate" to share with the rest of the world. 

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Before meeting Gosling, Mendes hadn't ever planned on starting a family.

"It was the furthest thing from my mind," she told Women's Health in 2019.

"[Then] Ryan Gosling happened," she said. "I mean, falling in love with him. Then it made sense for me to have… not kids, but his kids. It was very specific to him."

The couple had their first child, Esmeralda Amada Gosling, in 2014 and their second, Amada Lee Gosling, in 2016. And while some sources suggest that Mendes and Gosling got married in 2016, nothing has ever been confirmed.

When discussing her reasons for keeping both of their daughters out of the spotlight, Mendes explained that with fame comes attention, and as their children are young and not electively in the public eye, they want to keep their lives as private as possible.

“Whether we like it or not, privacy is going to be very difficult for Esmeralda. I think it's unfair but that's our reality. So Ryan and I decided early on to give her as much privacy as we could. And my pregnancy was the first opportunity to give her that," Mendes told Violet Grey in 2014.

She continued to explain why there are no pregnancy photos online either.

"It's such an intimate time for the mother, too. I know that it seems all very innocuous when you're flipping through a tabloid at the doctor's office or see a photo of a pregnant lady online, but I find the media's 'bump watch' obsession to be both intrusive and stressful. So I made a decision to eject myself from it completely. I was like, 'Annnnd I'm out'," she said.

Not only do the couple wish for their children to remain out of the public eye, they also want them to have a 'normal' upbringing inside the home, with no nannies.

When Mendes gave one of her few interviews after giving birth to her first child Esmeralda, she was asked whether her daughter was with the nanny.

"[She's with] papa and the family," she told the Today Show. "Thank God, I have my entire family 10 minutes away."

During an interview with Kelly Clarkson in 2019, Mendes explained that despite her and Gosling having similar parenting styles, it could potentially be too much for some people.

"We're very controlling," she said. "I think what the term is - we're always laughing at these terms - I think we would be 'bulldozing parents'.

"We have to be on top of them every second. What else are we supposed to do? The stakes are really high so yeah, I'm a helicopter parent. And then I heard the bulldozing and I'm like, 'Ooh, yeah, I'm probably a bulldozing parent too'," she told Clarkson on the Kelly Clarkson Show.

She continued to share the importance of family and her own Cuban upbringing, and how she wants to raise her children the same way.

"Esmeralda mostly speaks Spanglish right now. It's really cute. She's definitely bilingual, and it's really important for us to make sure that she's not only just familiar with the language, but also with the culture.

"My mum, who lives 15 minutes away, makes it easy because she speaks to the girls in Spanish and cooks them Cuban food. And we're always listening to Cuban music. It really is a big part of our way of life. I wouldn't have it any other way," she told People.

Mendes chose to step away from acting in order to raise her family. And, as she told E! News, that doesn't mean she's got everything sorted - if anything, she still struggles with finding balance. 

"I don't feel like I have it balanced at all. I kind of have been figuring it out as I'm going along and it's just important to have a support system. I have my family, I have Ryan's family and that's just, like, invaluable to have family around supporting you," she said.

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When addressing why she hasn't acted for several years, she told Shape two years ago, "What people don't know about me is that I love being home. Instead of being on the red carpet, I'd rather be home with my girls."

Mendes said she doesn't plan on returning to acting again.

"I don't really miss it," Mendes told Variety.

"I got tired fighting for the good roles. There just was a point where I thought, 'I'm going to create my own opportunities and become a producer on things and create my own material,' but it just didn't feel worth it to me."

She went on to add: "There are more opportunities for Latina actresses now, but when I bowed out 10 years ago, I wasn't being offered things that weren't specifically Latina," she said. "It is exciting that things are different now, so who knows what I will do in the future. But right now, I’m keeping it in the home with my kids."

While it's been eight years since the actor last popped up on the big screen, she doesn't regret a moment being away - and in an Instagram post made in October 2022, Mendes made that perfectly clear. 

"I never quit acting," she wrote. "I wanted to be home with my babies and fortunately my other business ventures allowed me to do that more than acting would."

    

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She went on to write: "Also, I was not excited about the stereotypical roles being offered to me at the time. Especially after working on the film Lost River - that was a dream project. That’s a tough act to follow."

Mendes finished up by saying, "What's the point of this post? To shift that narrative. I never quit."

In lieu of acting, Mendes said she has been focusing on her business ventures instead, including her new co-ownership of kitchen cleaning product company Skura Style.

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As for Gosling, the more outward-facing partner, he speaks of his family rarely, but when he does, it's quite sweet.

When discussing Mendes, he rarely uses her name or draws attention to the fact his partner is one of Hollywood's most recognisable women. Instead, he refers to her as "my lady" most of the time. However, once when asked what attracted him to her, he replied: "That she's Eva Mendes. There's nothing else I'm looking for."

And when speaking about raising a family, he only shares the positives.

"Your whole life, you hear what it's like to have kids, and all the clichés are true. I felt I knew that everything would be different, but until you experience that, there's no way to really know what people mean," he began sharing in his GQ profile.

"And in my situation, Eva's the dream mother, and they're dream babies, and it's like a dream that I'm having right now. I'm dreaming it all. So I feel so lucky. My life [has] changed. And thank God it did."

This article was originally published on April 22, 2021, and has been updated since.

Feature image: Focus Features.

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