Eva Mendes

Eva Mendes is an actress and businesswoman known for her roles in Hitch, Training Day and The Place Beyond the Pines. Mendes was born in Miami and raised in Los Angeles. She studied marketing at California State University, Northridge, before leaving to pursue acting full-time.

She began her career in the late 1990s with small roles in films like Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) and Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000). Her breakout came in 2001 opposite Denzel Washington in Training Day, which led to more high-profile roles in major studio films throughout the 2000s.

Mendes went on to star in box office hits like 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Hitch (2005) and Ghost Rider (2007). She also received attention for her performances in indie films like We Own the Night (2007) and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), in which she starred opposite Ryan Gosling. Outside of acting, she has worked as a model and launched her own fashion and home collections.

Mendes began dating Gosling in 2011 after meeting on the set of The Place Beyond the Pines. The couple share daughters Esmeralda Amada (born in 2014) and Amada Lee (born in 2016). Mendes and Gosling have kept their relationship largely private and confirmed their marriage in 2022.