Eva Mendes: Family, Gosling & Early Love

Eva Mendes is recalling the unexpected way she and Ryan Gosling bonded when they first started dating. 

“I always thought it was a Cuban thing that we love to clean, and we love a clean kitchen,” Mendes, 51, said in a recent interview with New Beauty. “Some of my best memories from when I was little are of my mom cleaning the house over the weekend. She’d be playing a record super loudly, and it would wake me up. There was the smell of Pine-Sol and the sounds of her singing to El Puma.”

But when Mendes began dating Gosling, 44, in 2011 while they starred together in The Place Beyond the Pines, she discovered the actor had a similar passion for cleanliness. “He would come over. He just loved it. When my family was around, we would literally take over the kitchen. It had to be clean.”

Added Mendes, “It was a bonding experience.”

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The Training Day star also spoke about the recent expansion of the Skura Style x Eva Mendes Collection, the lifestyle brand she co-owns. “I have my own packaging, which I’m just nuts for. It was so fun designing that.”

As for summer plans with daughters Esmeralda Amada, 10, and Amada Lee, 9, whom she shares with Gosling, Mendes indicated she’s just happy to be by their side. “Summer is their time to be kids, and I’m really taking it in… I just want to be with them. Whatever I’m doing, as long as I’m with them and Ryan, of course, that’s where I’m happiest.”

Speaking to PEOPLE in April 2024 about her Skura Style collection, the mother of two said “a clean sink” helps clear her head. “I find doing the dishes meditative. It is a time to think and relax,” she said at the time. “The rest of my family pitches in; however, the dishes are really my domain — my happy place.”

Mendes has focused on parenting since welcoming her first daughter, stepping away from acting since 2014’s Gosling-directed Lost River, aside from voicing a character on the children’s series Bluey.