Eva Mendes Opens Up About Falling In Love With Ryan Gosling In Rare Interview About Their Love Life

Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling met on the set of The Place Beyond The Pines in 2013 and quietly fell in love while filming the movie. Since that time, the gorgeous couple has been pretty hush-hush about their relationship, but now Mendes has opened up about their love life in a new interview for Women’s Health Magazine.

Mendes shared that if you asked her over five years ago — during the time before she met Gosling — her life and her goals looked a lot different. She revealed that having children was “the furthest thing” from her mind, but then gushed about how that all changed since meeting The Notebook actor. Now, the mom-of-two embraces her constant disorganization and the fact that her life has been turned upside down since having children, and she’s just fine with that.

“Ryan Gosling happened. 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.”

She also shared some funny anecdotes about their life at home as parents to 4-year old Esmeralda and 2-year old Amada — like the fact that Esmeralda thinks that her dad works on the moon thanks to his role as an astronaut in First Man. Mendes added that now that Amada is out of the baby phase, the family has moved out of what she referred to as “survival mode,” and they’re all finding a little bit of cadence in their day-to-day routines.

Mendes is getting back into her workout routines and she’s starting to feel a little more like herself now that Amada is a little less reliant on her for everything. She hits the gym three days a week with the help of a trainer, and together they go through rounds of cardio, strength training, and mobility. Having the trainer by her side is important because, as she jokingly said, leaving her two girls in a room alone is “dangerous.” She’s also been trying to keep her eating habits on track, too, though she admitted she has a bit of a sweet tooth.

The Hitch actress also gushed about the family’s support system, which includes her mother, and Gosling’s own mother and sisters. She shared that they wouldn’t be able to run so smoothly without their assistance and that the little “village” they’ve created is a huge reason she’s able to get so much done in her day.

“My heart goes out to women who do this alone. I basically come from a single-parent household; although I love my dad, my mom mostly raised four of us on her own,” Mendes added.