Eva Mendes’ major break came when she played Denzel Washington‘s mistress in Training Day (2001). Her other chart-topping singles include Stuck on You (2003) and Hitch (2005). She has appeared in advertising for firms such as Revlon and Calvin Klein.
Early Life
Eva Mendes was born Eva de la Caridad Mendez in Miami, Florida on March 5, 1974. She is the fourth child of Cuban émigrés Eva Perez Suarez and Carlos Mendez. For her acting career, she went by the stage name Mendes.
Mendes’ family relocated to Los Angeles when she was a child, settling in the Silver Lake district. When she was about ten years old, her parents split.
Mendes’ working-class family struggled at times to make ends meet. Her mother, who worked in accounting, had a weekend job at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where Mendes occasionally accompanied her, while her father worked in meat distribution.
Mendes attended California State University, Northridge, where he majored in marketing. However, her career path was altered when a manager became interested in her images taken by a neighbor.
Career as an Actress
Mendes decided to try her hand at acting, believing she could make money during the summer. She was employed for music videos but did not fare well in other auditions. A commercial casting director once warned her she was “too ethnic…to be the face of any American product.”
This intolerance had no effect on Mendes. She stated in the same interview, “I have fond memories of that moment now, because that woman actually provided me with the fuel I needed, so I used it as a challenge, to give me that fire or extra kick I needed to break through.”
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998), a straight-to-video film, piqued Mendes’ interest in acting. She said in 2008, “Going in, I had no plans to make a career of it. But I realized that I was a terrible actress, and it started to seem like the right kind of challenge for me to pursue. I thought I could really do something with it.”
Mendes sought advice from an acting teacher before landing a breakthrough role as Denzel Washington’s mistress in Training Day. Out of Time (2003), Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), the comedy Stuck on You, and 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) are among her subsequent features. When she played Will Smith’s love interest in the romantic comedy Hitch, she was a great hit.
Mendes co-starred in the thriller We Own the Night (2007) starring Joaquin Phoenix and Ghost Rider (2007) with Nicolas Cage. She appeared in Frank Miller’s The Spirit (2008) and was part of an ensemble of exceptional women in the adaptation of The Women (2008).
Around 2009, Mendes decided it was time to take a new approach to acting. She later explained, “I started feeling extremely empty and unsatisfied with the work that I was putting out there. So I made a change to do what I actually want to do.”
Mendes was directed by Werner Herzog on the noir Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) and demonstrated a flare for comedy in The Other Guys (2010) during this period of her career. She also garnered acclaim in the independent films Last Night (2011) and Holy Motors (2012).
Mendes starred in The Place Beyond the Pines as a down-on-her-luck waitress who became Ryan Gosling’s romantic interest. Following the completion of the film in 2011, the couple began to appear in public as a couple. They collaborated once more in Lost River (2014), a film written and directed by Gosling and starring Mendes.
Personal Life
Mendes checked into a recovery program in January 2008. Her agents indicated at the time that she had “made the positive decision to take some much-needed time off to proactively attend to some personal issues that, while not critical, she felt deserved some outside professional support.”
Mendes has never disclosed the nature of the treatment she sought. This reflects her continuous desire to keep the media and public out of her personal life.
Designer and Entrepreneur
Mendes had a dinnerware line called Vida by Eva Mendes at Macy’s.
Mendes secured a partnership with New York & Company in 2013 to create and sell a clothing brand called Eva by Eva Mendes. Her collection has grown to include plus sizes and jewelry.
Mendes discovered the sponge brand Skura Style while cleaning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her enthusiasm led to her becoming a co-owner and brand advocate for the company.
Relationship and Children
Mendes has been in a relationship with her The Place Beyond the Pines co-star Ryan Gosling since 2011. The couple has been reserved in releasing details about their lives together. Despite allegations that they met on set, they had known each other for years prior. Gosling approached the film’s director with the idea of casting Mendes.
Mendes stated in a 2019 interview that she wasn’t sure about having children until she met Gosling. “It made sense for me to have…not kids, but his kids. It was very specific to him.” The pair share two daughters: Esmeralda Amada (born in 2014; her first name was inspired by a Victor Hugo novel) and Amada Lee (born in 2016; her first name belonged to Mendes’s grandmother).
Mendes attempts to give her children as much privacy as possible by not posting images of them on social media. She grew up speaking Spanish and English and is teaching her daughters to do the same.
According to People magazine, Mendes and Gosling married in 2016, although sources denied it.
Mendes was previously married to music producer and design entrepreneur George Augusto for eight years before to her relationship with Gosling.