Ryan Gosling didn't always want to be a father — unless his kid's mother is Eva Mendes.
During a rare interview published Wednesday, May 31, the Barbie star opened up about becoming a dad and the early stages of his extremely private relationship with the Ghost Rider actress.
Gosling, 42, and Mendes, 49, met on the set of The Place Beyond The Pines in 2011 and came forward as a couple shortly after.
The lovebirds later welcomed two daughters together, Esmeralda, 8, and Amada, 6. Gosling stepped away from acting from 2018-2022 in order to "spend as much time with" his girls as he could.
The La La Land actor confessed he wasn't certain about fatherhood until Mendes approached him with news she was pregnant.
"I would never want to go back, you know?" Gosling admitted. "I’m glad I didn’t have any control over my destiny in that way, because it was so much better than I had ever dreamed for myself."
Later on in the interview, Gosling clarified his thoughts on having children, as he truly wouldn't change a thing.
"I didn’t want to overshare, but now I also don’t want to misrepresent," The Notebook star stated. "I mean, it’s true, I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her. But after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn’t want to have kids without her."
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Gosling knew Mendes was meant to be the mother of his children after the pair "pretended to be a family" during filming of The Place Beyond The Pines.
It didn't take long for the handsome hunk to realize he "didn’t want it to be pretend anymore."
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"I realized this would be a life that I would be really lucky to have," Gosling expressed, as he continued to gush over how amazing of a mom Mendes is to their children.
"I just lean on Eva," Gosling said in terms of parenting. "She knows what’s important, always. She just somehow knows. So if I’m ever in my head about it, I just ask her."
While reflecting on his life as a father-of-two and longtime lover to Mendes, Gosling realized the Hitch actress was who he was "looking" for all along.
"It all makes sense now," he concluded.
While Mendes and Gosling have never confirmed if they are legally married, the brunette beauty seemed to reveal they were when she called the Drive actor her "husband" during a November 2022 interview.
GQ interviewed Gosling about fatherhood.
