Ryan Gosling can pinpoint the exact moment he could see himself as a dad.
In an interview published May 31, Gosling, 42, told GQ he knew he wanted to have kids when he met his current partner, Eva Mendes.
"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," he told the outlet.
Gosling and Mendes, 49, started dating in 2011 after starring in the crime drama “The Place Beyond The Pines” together. His feelings toward wanting fatherhood for himself originated from scenes in which their characters were “pretending to be a family,” he said.
“I didn’t really want it to be pretend anymore,” he said. “I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.”
Their first daughter, Esmeralda, was born in 2014, and their second daughter, Amada, was born in 2016.
The "Barbie" actor said even though he didn't originally see being a dad in his future, he wouldn't change anything.
“I would never want to go back, you know?" he explained. "I’m glad I didn’t have control over my destiny in that way, because it was so much better than I ever had dreamed for myself.”
Since becoming parents, Gosling and Mendes have taken breaks from acting to raise their kids. Mendes' last roles were in the 2014 film "Lost River" and as a voice actor in the children's show "Bluey" in 2021, according to IMDb.
After welcoming their second daughter, Gosling took on a few big studio films, like "La La Land" in 2016 and "Blade Runner 2049" in 2017, before eventually taking a four-year hiatus from acting.
"I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them,” Gosling said of his family.
In fact, Gosling said he aims to film around one movie a year because he brings his family on location. They also don't have a nanny, he said.
Whenever he has a parenting question or doesn't know what to do, he said he consults his partner.
“I just lean on Eva," he said. "She knows what’s important, always. She just somehow knows. So if ever I’m in my head about it, I just ask her.”
Like her husband, Mendes previously revealed that she didn't think about motherhood until sparks flew on the set of their 2012 movie.
In a 2019 article with Women's Health, she said having kids was "the furthest thing from my mind."
“Ryan Gosling happened," she told the outlet. "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.”
