It takes a lot to impress Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling’s two daughters.
Mendes, 50, who shares Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, 8, with the Barbie star, revealed on the Wednesday, September 18, episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that she recently played a clip from her hit 2005 rom-com Hitch for her kids, but they weren’t interested.
“They don’t care,” she said. “This was about a year ago. I tried to show them a scene from Hitch that I was actually proud of because I’m scared of deep, dark water. I had to do this physical comedy stunt thing in the Hudson [River]. I was so scared. I faced a fear that day and I was proud of it.”
Mendes continued, “One time, one of my girls was scared and I’m like, ‘Ooh, opportunity to show off.’ I played it for them and I was like, ‘This is Mama facing her fear.’”
How Babies and ‘Barbie’ Changed Ryan Gosling’s Life
“They were not impressed at all,” Mendes admitted. “They were just like, ‘OK, cool, Mama, can we go outside?’”
While Mendes has largely retired from acting since her last movie was released in 2014, she made a voice cameo on the hit children’s show Bluey in 2021. It was her role on that show that excited her daughters.
“Now that impressed them!” Mendes said.
Host Jimmy Fallon then told Mendes that he’s never been asked to be on Bluey, to which Mendes responded, “I asked for it,” presumably for her kids.
While Mom’s career may not be that interesting to Mendes’ daughters, their dad’s role as Ken in Barbie meant a lot to the couple’s children.
“That was beautiful because the girls were such a huge part of that,” Mendes said. “They were such a huge part of him saying yes and taking the role. There’s 30 Barbies sitting in the house and there’s one Ken, so he was like, ‘There’s something here.’”
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes’ Relationship Timeline
In January, Gosling, 43, said part of the reason he played Ken was “to sort of make something both for and with them.”
“I knew that they loved it because they kept saying at first, ‘Hey, can we go to Target?’” Gosling told E! News. “And we go to Target, and then they’d slowly go by the Barbie aisle. And my wife and I sort of realized, ‘OK, I think it’s time to let them have Barbies.’ And no interest in Ken, which was pretty interesting too.”
However, at the time, Gosling said he had yet to let his daughters watch Barbie, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
“I don’t know if you should watch your father as Ken,” Gosling told E! News. “I don’t know what age is a good age to see your father do that. It gets pretty crazy.”
