Eva Mendes

Mendes has been in a relationship with actor Ryan Gosling since 2011, after they worked together on The Place Beyond the Pines. They have two daughters, Esmeralda Amada Gosling, born in 2014, and Amada Lee Gosling, born in 2016.

Mendes and Gosling keep their family life private, and Mendes has said that she does not post photographs of their children on social media. Before her relationship with Gosling, she was in an eight-year relationship with music producer and design entrepreneur George Augusto, which ended in 2011. In 2008, Mendes entered a rehabilitation facility to address a dependency problem involving drugs including alcohol.

Mendes began acting in the late 1990s after a talent manager saw her photograph in a friend's portfolio. Her first film appearance was in the direct-to-video horror film Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998). She later appeared in A Night at the Roxbury, My Brother the Pig, Urban Legends: Final Cut, and Exit Wounds.

Her breakthrough came with Antoine Fuqua's crime thriller Training Day (2001), in which she played the mistress of Denzel Washington's corrupt police officer. The role led to larger parts in All About the Benjamins, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Out of Time, and Stuck on You. Her performance as Sara Melas in the romantic comedy Hitch (2005), opposite Will Smith, became one of her best-known roles.

Mendes continued with a mixture of mainstream and dramatic films, including Ghost Rider and We Own the Night in 2007, The Women and The Spirit in 2008, and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans in 2009. She reunited with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg for The Other Guys (2010) and appeared in Massy Tadjedin's romantic drama Last Night that same year.

In 2012, Mendes starred in Girl in Progress, Holy Motors, and The Place Beyond the Pines, playing Romina opposite Ryan Gosling. She later appeared in the HBO film Clear History and played Cat in Gosling's directorial debut Lost River (2014). She subsequently stepped back from film acting, while returning to voice work as the Yoga Instructor in an episode of Bluey in 2021.

Mendes appeared in music videos for the Pet Shop Boys, Aerosmith, Will Smith, and The Strokes. She became an international spokesperson for Revlon in 2005 and participated in the company's breast cancer fundraising campaign. Her other advertising and modeling associations included Calvin Klein, Cartier, Magnum, Thierry Mugler, Reebok, Pantene, Campari, Cocio, Morgan, and Peek & Cloppenburg.

She developed a home-goods line of bed linens and dinnerware sold at Macy's and launched the Eva by Eva Mendes clothing line with New York & Company in 2013. She was also the creative director of CIRCA Beauty, a makeup brand launched exclusively at Walgreens in 2015. Mendes recorded the song "Pimps Don't Cry" for The Other Guys and performed it as a duet with CeeLo Green.