In an interview with Women’s Health, Eva Mendes opened up about her views on motherhood saying that “it was the furthest thing from my mind.
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The 45-year-old actress revealed that she never thought she’d be a mother, but then she met Ryan Gosling.
Almost five years ago, Eva gave birth to her first child, Esmeralda, with Ryan Gosling, whom she worked with on The Place Beyond the Pines. A year and a half later daughter Amada born.
She said: “It was the furthest thing from my mind,” she admits when asked how she ended up with 4- and 2-year-old and a schedule full of music classes and play dates.
“Ryan Gosling happened.” Then she giggles and adds, “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.”
“We’re just starting to get out of survival mode,” the 45-year-old says. “I’m starting to feel like a person again.”
“I’m envious of women who enjoy working out because I have the worst attitude about it,” she admits. “My vanity gets me to the gym—and obviously health reasons—but I’m kicking and screaming the whole way through.”
“I have blood work done at least twice a year because I have high blood sugar, and high cholesterol runs in my family,” says the actress, who eats a lot of salmon and quinoa and has found that fish oil and CoQ10 supplements help her feel balanced.
She has scrambled eggs and coffee with coconut oil or coconut sugar every morning, and she cops to sipping a soda or two a week. “I’m not squeaky-clean healthy,” she says. “I have a sweet tooth, so I can’t keep anything in the house.”
Eva was asked what were the things that got her through when at one point she had two children under 2 years old? “Family,” she responds, right away. “We have an amazing support group: Ryan’s mom, my mom, Ryan’s and my sisters. It’s a village that helped us. 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.”
Eva’s mother rooted the family in L.A. after moving from Miami, where Eva was born, and before that, her native Cuba.
“She was the mom in Cuba who had to walk however many miles to fetch water from the well,” says Eva. “That was her reality for a while, so the level of respect and appreciation I have for her now is incredible.”
“We didn’t have much when I was growing up,” she explains. “My mother would say, ‘As little as we have, there are so many people who have less.’ She made me appreciate that from an early age.”
Then Eva was asked how she plans to instill the same appreciation in Esmeralda and Amada, who are growing up amid vastly more resources and eyeballs.
“It’s definitely a concern,” she says. “Not only are we in the industry, but the whole fame component is super scary when you try to raise your kids.” (Eva sighs while explaining the lengths to which they go to find playgrounds beyond the purview of the paparazzi.)
“What I try to emphasize is that I don’t let them see me put attention to how I dress. They’ve never seen me get ready for something; they’ve never seen me at work. Which is fine, for whoever wants to do it that way, but the way I keep it normal is by not letting them see me in these situations. I’m just Mom. And I’m more than happy to just be Mom.”
She said when her first baby was born. She felt she’d worked really hard in Hollywood for 20 years and wanted to put that energy elsewhere.
“I felt a lack of ambition if I can be honest,” she says. “I feel more ambitious in the home right now than I do in the workplace.”
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