Eva Mendes will never get Kenough of Ryan Gosling.
The Hitch star—who shares daughters Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, 8 with the Barbie actor—recently praised her longtime love for shining a light on some of Hollywood’s unsung heroes: the stunt community.
“My man is the F best!” Eva, 51, wrote in her April 11 tribute on Instagram, which highlighted the stunts’ long fight to be acknowledged during award season. “Unfortunately, success is almost only measured by box office. So I’m extra proud of my man for turning his entire Fall Guy press tour into a campaign to get stunts recognized by the Oscars.”
Indeed, Ryan—who played a stunt man in the 2024 action film alongside Emily Blunt—made headlines by highlighting the performers’ tenacious work on-and-offscreen. Specifically, he spoke highly of the four stunt doubles (Justin Eaton, Troy Brown, Logan Holladay and Ben Jenkin) that helped bring the script to life. He also invited them to the Fall Guy’s Hollywood premiere last April, where he notably described the project as “a giant campaign to get stunts an Oscar.”
And now, it seems his advocacy didn’t go unnoticed. On April 10, one day before Eva’s sweet shoutout, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Directors announced they will honor stunt doubles in a new category. The trophy, fittingly called the Achievement in Stunt Design, will make its debut at the 2028 Oscars.
With this recognition being long overdue, Eva celebrated the news as a “huge success.”
“Congratulations to the incredible stunt community!!” the Ghost Rider actor continued, before joking about the photo she used of Ryan and Emily during their Fall Guy era. “BTW, this is the last time I post a pic of my man and the total babe that is Emily Blunt. No más!”
And while the duo have made a point to keep their nearly 14-year romance out of the spotlight, Eva—whose last acting role was in 2014’s Lost River, which Ryan directed—has often praised her partner’s work. Last January, she celebrated Ryan securing an Oscar nomination for his role as Barbie’s Ken.
“Despite all the #Notmyken ridicule and articles written about him, he created this completely original, hilarious, heartbreaking, now iconic character and took it all the way to Oscars,” she wrote on Instagram at the time, adding, “So beyond proud to be this Ken’s Barbie.”
Keep reading to see more moments of Eva being Ryan’s biggest cheerleader…
Their Place Beyond the Pines
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes started dating shortly after playing a couple in their 2012 crime drama A Place Beyond the Pines.
“I know that I’m with the person I’m supposed to be with,” Ryan told Hello three years after the movie’s release, adding that his favorite quality about his partner is that “she’s Eva Mendes.”
As he put it, “There’s nothing else I’m looking for.”
On Cloud Nine
For Ryan, life with Eva and their daughters Esmeralda and Amada is “heaven.”
“It’s like walking through a field of flowers every day,” he gushed during a 2016 appearance on Good Morning America. “I live with angels. It’s a ray of sunshine in a dark time.”
La La Love
Ryan dedicated his 2017 Golden Globes win for La La Land to Eva—and her late brother Juan Carlos Méndez Jr.—saying in his acceptance speech, “While I was singing and dancing and playing piano and having one of the best experiences I’ve ever had on a film, my lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second, and trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer.”
“If she hadn’t have taken all that on so that I could have this experience, it would surely be someone else up here other than me today,” continued Ryan. “So sweetheart, thank you.”
Oh Baby
For most of her life, Eva thought she would never become a mother. Then, according to the Hitch actress, “Ryan Gosling happened.”
“I mean, falling in love with him,” she told Women’s Health in 2019. “Then it made sense for me to have…not kids, buthis kids. It was very specific to him.”
Parental Duties
Of her life with Ryan as parents to two young girls, Eva joked to Access in 2019, “It’s so fun and beautiful and maddening.”
“It’s so hard, of course,” she noted. “You end your day, you put them to bed and Ryan and I kind of look at each other like, ‘We did it, we did it. We came out relatively unscathed.'”
Staying Private in a Public Space
Eva got candid about the couple’s decision to keep their home life out of the spotlight, writing to a fan on Instagram in May 2020, “I don’t talk about Ryan and all the wonderful things he does as a father because I keep that part private.”
“I feel it’s best that I continue to disclose what I’m comfortable with but not involve him or my kids too much,” she continued. “Does that make sense? Hope so. Because this is my honest answer.”
Building a Family
Likewise, Ryan didn’t really have baby on the brain until Eva came along.
“I mean, it’s true that I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her,” the Drive star admitted in a 2023 GQ interview, “but after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn’t want to have kids without her.”
In fact, Ryan said “there were moments on The Place Beyond the Pines where we were pretending to be a family, and I didn’t really want it to be pretend anymore. I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.”
Mama Knows Best
When it comes to parenting, Ryan also admittedly looks to his longtime love.
“I just lean on Eva,” he told GQ in 2023. “She knows what’s important, always. She just somehow knows. So if ever I’m in my head about it, I just ask her.”
Finding the One
Reflecting on his life before Eva, the Notebook alum said in the same interview, “I was looking for her, you know?”
He added, “But it all makes sense now.”
Feel the Kenergy
Eva let the world know that Ryan is more than kenough following the success of Barbie. Reflecting on the “hate when he took on this role,” the actress wrote on Instagram in January 2024, “So proud of my man.”
“Despite all the #Notmyken ridicule and articles written about him, he created this completely original, hilarious, heartbreaking, now iconic character,” she added, “and took it all the way to Oscars.”
Best Costars
Working with Ryan on The Place Beyond the Pines changed Eva’s life in more ways than one. As she explained of his approach to acting during a March 2024 Today appearance, “I’ve never experienced anything like that.”
“The way he works, his commitment to his craft, how he wants to make everything as best as it can be,” the Girl in Progress star shared, “and that means making his costars as best as they can be.”
Lessons Learned
But for Ryan, Eva is the one doling out the acting lessons.
“She has really become the best acting coach I have ever had,” he raved to Extra in May 2024. “It’s endless how she helps me”
