The Real Reason Eva Mendes Disappeared From Hollywood

Is Eva Mendes fully retired from acting, or will she step back in front of the camera again sometime in the future? Honestly, she's not sure.

10 years after her last film appearance —  in her partner Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, "Lost River," where she plays a supporting role as a dancer named Cat — Mendes thinks she had a pretty good run and doesn't appear eager to mess with her acting legacy. While speaking to George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America on September 17 to promote her children's book "Desi, Mami, and The Never-Ending Worries," Mendes indicated that she might be done for good.

"I don't know. If there — you know — if there's interesting roles," Mendes revealed. "I kinda felt like I did it, ya know? I was like, I just worked with Ryan Gosling, who's, like, the best. And I had such a — I don't know — it was such a high off my career to work with him and what we created together that I was like, 'This is a good time to just 'Seinfeld' it and just walk out.' So, who knows?" (For the uninitiated, Mendes is making an A+ reference to "Seinfeld" standout George Costanza, who, as played by Jason Alexander, once adopted a policy where he would leave the room after making a single great joke.)

To be perfectly clear, Eva Mendes never officially "quit" acting, as she noted herself in an Instagram post from October 2022. "I never quit acting," Mendes wrote in a caption alongside screenshots of stories about why she stopped performing. "I wanted to be home with my babies and fortunately my other business ventures allowed me to do that more than acting would." Mendes also said that she wasn't necessarily offered roles that interested her, calling the ones that came her way "stereotypical" and stating that her excellent experience on "Lost River" was "a tough act to follow."

Still, when she was acting regularly, Mendes appeared in some pretty critically and commercially successful films. In 2001, she appeared in the Oscar-winning "Training Day" in a supporting role and followed that with box office victories like "2 Fast 2 Furious" in 2003 and the romantic comedy "Hitch" in 2005. Mendes also showed off her comedic chops in movies like "The Other Guys" and the remake of "The Women," and in 2010, she linked up with Ryan Gosling for Derek Cianfrance's acclaimed crime drama "The Place Beyond the Pines." The pair met while playing ex-lovers in the movie, and as far as their real-life relationship goes, the rest is history.

The good news here is that, according to Eva Mendes, she's doing just fine during her indefinite hiatus from acting. In September 2022, she told Variety that she "[doesn't] really miss it" — "it" being "acting, obviously — and said that she was tired of fighting for good roles. Though she also said she considered moving into producing and creating her own opportunities, she and Ryan Gosling's daughters, Esmerelda and Amada, became her main focus. "I thought, 'Oh, this is what I'm supposed to do right now,'" Mendes told interviewer Marc Malkin at the time before acknowledging that, yes, the industry has changed. "There are more opportunities for Latina actresses now, but when I bowed out 10 years ago I wasn't being offered things that weren't specifically Latina. It is exciting that things are different now, so who knows what I will do in the future. But right now, I'm keeping it in the home with my kids."

There you have it: Mendes is supporting "Barbie" star Gosling these days, and throughout his recent Oscar campaign for playing Ken, she could frequently be spotted cheering him on (she even quietly appeared backstage at the Oscars during his musical performance of "I'm Just Ken"). Still, if Mendes decides to return to acting, hopefully the industry will welcome her back with open arms — and some great roles.