So how did this elusive Hollywood couple link up in the first place? Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes worked on the 2012 family drama “The Place Beyond the Pines” together, where Mendes played the ex-girlfriend of Gosling’s character (and the mother of their child) — but in April of 2023, Mendes clarified that they didn’t get together romantically while working on the movie. “Magic is Real,” Mendes wrote in an Instagram post. “We did not meet on set. The magic started way before but here’s a little magic captured on camera. Gracias to the increíble director Derek Cianfrance.”
The couple now have two children together and are incredibly sweet about each other whenever the topic comes up. In 2023, Gosling even said that he wasn’t even sure he wanted children, but that changed when he met Mendes. “I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her,” he told GQ. “But after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn’t want to have kids without her.”
This all comes full circle when it comes to “Barbie,” because when one of Mendes and Gosling’s kids left their Ken doll facedown in a mud puddle, Gosling felt inspired to play Ken and told director Greta Gerwig he was all in on the project. Ultimately, we have Mendes to thank, in a roundabout way, for Gosling’s star turn in “Barbie.”
