Eva Mendes Would Only Return to Acting Alongside Husband Ryan Gosling

It would take the power of Ken to bring Eva Mendes back to the big screen. The actress hasn’t appeared in anything in nearly a decade, last taking a small role in her husband Ryan Gosling feature directorial debut, Lost River. 

“I was never in love with acting,” Mendes explained of her career choices in a new interview with the Sunday Times. “I don’t mean this in a self-deprecating way, but I wasn’t a great actress. I had my moments when I worked with really great people.” She did acknowledge, however, that throughout her career “there were some pretty shitty roles.” 

She added that she was only getting cast either because of her looks or being rejected because of her Cuban heritage. “That’s all they would say at the beginning — ‘she’s too ethnic for this, too ethnic for that,’ ” Mendes said. “It was so crazy. That was the constant note. Then, at some point, it switched to, ‘Oh, ethnic is cool now’ or, ‘Being Latina is cool’. It gave me energy because it would make me so mad and then I’d get that fuel that I needed.”

She explained that she felt her best work was opposite Gosling in Lost River and 2012’s The Place Beyond the Pines, where the couple first met. “He gets something out of me that’s never been accessible before,” she said, adding that she only plans to return to acting if it’s with Gosling. “That’s the one thing I would love to do,” Mendes confirmed.

Although she’s no longer acting, Mendes told the Times that she offers acting notes to Gosling on occasion. Notably, she was responsible for some of his top choices in Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster Barbie.
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“I would just simplify everything,” Mendes said. “I’m like, ‘Just make Barbie notice you, that’s what Ken is all about.’ So then there was this desperation. He really loved that,” Mendes said. “I’d remind him, as he’s literally walking out the door, ‘Make Barbie notice you, make Barbie fall in love with you.’”

Gosling most recently appeared in The Fall Guy opposite Emily Blunt. He’s currently filming sci-fi movie Project Hail Mary with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.