Eva Mendes

• 1. Introduction

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  Eva Mendes, born Eva de la Caridad Méndez, played a cabaret performer named Cat in her final film, Lost River, in 2014. The film was the directorial debut of Ryan Gosling, and it competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Mendes has not appeared in a film since. For an American actress who spent the previous decade on posters for car chases, comic book adaptations and crime thrillers, that is a striking exit. Her own start was far more modest, with direct-to-video horror and a handful of television guest spots. How did a young woman from Los Angeles become one of Hollywood's most recognizable faces, and what did she do with that fame? And what made her decide that the fight was no longer worth it?

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• 2. Silver Lake Roots

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  Eva Mendes was born on the 5th of March 1974 in Miami, to Cuban parents named Eva Pérez Suárez and Carlos Méndez. Her parents divorced, and her mother raised her in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake. Her mother worked at Mann's Chinese Theatre and later took a job with an aerospace company. Her father ran a meat distribution business.

  Juan Carlos Méndez, her older brother, was born in 1963 and died in 2016 from throat cancer. She also had a younger half brother, Carlo, who was born in 1978.

  Hoover High School in Glendale was where Mendes went to school. She went on to study marketing at California State University, Northridge. College did not last, because she left to pursue acting with a teacher named Ivana Chubbuck. Those classes were the first step toward a debut on screen in 1998.

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• 3. Horror to Breakthrough

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  A talent manager flipping through a friend's portfolio spotted a photograph of Mendes, and that glance launched her acting career. Her first film was Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror, a direct-to-video horror picture. She played one of a group of young people who become lost in middle America. Mendes was unhappy with her own performance and soon hired an acting coach.

  The work that followed was small but varied. She played a bridesmaid in A Night at the Roxbury in 1998, alongside Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan. In My Brother the Pig in 1999 she was a housekeeper, and Scarlett Johansson was in the cast. Television guest roles came too, including episodes of ER and Mortal Kombat: Conquest in 1998. In 2000 she played an ill-fated film student in the slasher film Urban Legends: Final Cut.

  Director Leon Ichaso considered her for Piñero in 2001, but she did not get the part. The same year she appeared in Exit Wounds, a Steven Seagal action thriller that made over US$73 million worldwide. Mendes says her voice was dubbed during editing after a producer told her she "didn't sound intelligent enough".

  Her breakthrough arrived later in 2001 with Antoine Fuqua's crime thriller Training Day. She played the mistress of a corrupt cop, opposite Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. Mendes calls the role pivotal. She had grown bored with "terrible, cheesy horrible films", and this part gave her a reason to continue. Training Day grossed US$104.5 million, and it led directly to bigger parts.

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• 4. Blockbuster Years

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  Only one film carried Mendes onto screens in 2002, the crime comedy All About the Benjamins, in which she played a con artist's girlfriend. The following year she appeared in four studio features. The biggest was 2 Fast 2 Furious. In it she joined Paul Walker and Tyrese Gibson as a United States Customs Service agent working undercover for a notorious Argentine drug lord. It grossed over US$236 million globally and gave her far wider exposure.

  Once Upon a Time in Mexico cast her as the daughter of a Mexican drug lord, beside Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. Reviews were mixed, yet the film earned US$98.1 million. In Out of Time she reunited with Denzel Washington as the soon-to-be ex-wife of a respected police chief. Roger Ebert called her character "curiously forgiving" and suggested the film might have had more suspense if she were furious with her husband. Her last release of 2003 was the comedy Stuck on You, with Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, in which she played an aspiring actress.

  Hitch in 2005 paired her with Will Smith, who played a professional dating consultant. USA Today named it "her best screen role to date". The Detroit Free Press wrote that "Smith and Mendes are terrific together." The film earned US$368.1 million in theaters worldwide. That same year she also made two little-seen films, The Wendell Baker Story and Guilty Hearts. Two comic book adaptations were waiting just ahead.

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• 5. Comics and Critics

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  In the romantic comedy Trust the Man in 2006, Mendes shared the screen with David Duchovny, Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The A.V. Club described her character as a "vapid sexpot". Ghost Rider followed in 2007, a Marvel Comics adaptation in which she played the love interest of the title character, played by Nicolas Cage. Critics were harsh, but the film opened at the top of the North American box office with more than US$45 million. It eventually passed US$228 million worldwide.

  We Own the Night, also from 2007, put her opposite Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg as the girlfriend of an NYPD captain's brother. Critic Peter Travers called the film "defiantly, refreshingly unhip" and said that "sizzle comes naturally" from Mendes. Her other 2007 films, Live! and Cleaner, went unnoticed by audiences. She also made an uncredited cameo in the comedy Knocked Up.

  The Women in 2008 was an all-female comedy in which she played a perfume salesgirl at Saks Fifth Avenue. Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett Smith were her co-stars. The film did well commercially, but critics panned it, and Mendes earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actress. The Spirit, based on Will Eisner's newspaper comic strip, gave her the femme fatale role of Sand Saref. Critics found it melodramatic, unoriginal and sexist.

  Her only 2009 release was Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. She was again the love interest of Nicolas Cage, this time playing a prostitute. The film found a limited audience in theaters, but it appeared on many top ten lists of the year.

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• 6. Brands and Public Image

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  In 1996, years before Training Day, Mendes appeared in the Pet Shop Boys video for "Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)". Aerosmith's "Hole in My Soul" followed in 1997, and Will Smith's "Miami" in 1998. The Strokes featured her in the 2004 video for "The End Has No End".

  In 2005 Revlon hired her as an international spokesperson, and she joined a campaign raising funds for breast cancer research. In December 2007 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals used a nude photo of her in an anti-fur campaign. She was a spokesmodel for the 2008 Campari calendar. She also appeared nude in a 2008 print advertisement for Calvin Klein's Secret Obsession perfume. United States network executives judged it too risqué to broadcast. Other deals included Magnum, the chocolate milk brand Cocio, Thierry Mugler's Angel fragrance, Reebok shoes and Pantene shampoo.

  Macy's sold a line of bed linens and dinnerware that she designed. In February 2013 she partnered with New York & Co. to launch a fashion line called Eva by Eva Mendes. She also served as creative director of the makeup brand CIRCA Beauty, which launched exclusively at Walgreens in 2015. Music was a smaller sideline. In 2010 she sang "Pimps Don't Cry" for The Other Guys and performed it as a duet with CeeLo Green. A version of "The Windmills of Your Mind" followed in 2011.

  Many media outlets have cited her as one of the world's most beautiful Latin women. She once embraced the label of sex symbol, saying it was "partially self-created". She added: "I like it when it doesn't limit my career." Even so, her roles in the 2000s tended to lean on her looks.

  Maxim ranked her 54th in its Hot 100 issue in 2002, then 12th in 2005, 7th in 2007, 7th in 2008 and 11th in 2010. FHM placed her 80th, 23rd and 44th in 2004-2005 and 2006. AskMen.com voted her fourth in 2008 and first in 2009. People named her one of 2011's Most Beautiful at Every Age.

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• 7. Later Roles

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  The Other Guys in 2010 reunited her with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. She played the wife of a mild-mannered forensic accountant with the NYPD, and the film grossed US$170.4 million globally. That same year she took a part in Massy Tadjedin's romantic drama Last Night, with Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington. Mendes first worried the character would "lack originality" and was "too seductive". Then she met Tadjedin and agreed to the role. "It was great to connect with a female director," she said. Of the decision to star, she added: "Thank God I did."

  In 2011 she made an uncredited cameo in Fast Five, reprising her role from 2 Fast 2 Furious. The following year she played a single mother raising a fourteen-year-old daughter in Girl in Progress. It earned her an ALMA Award nomination for Favorite Movie Actress. Holy Motors, an art fantasy drama, gave her the role of Kay M, which was originally written for Kate Moss. Mendes called it "the coolest, most creative thing I've ever done".

  Derek Cianfrance directed The Place Beyond the Pines in 2012, with Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. Mendes played the former lover of a motorcycle stuntman, and Entertainment Weekly called her performance "quietly heartbreaking". In October 2012 she appeared in the PBS documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, after a visit to Sierra Leone. Her next role, in 2013, was in the HBO comedy film Clear History, as a formerly heavy-set woman.

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• 8. Stepping Away

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  George Augusto, a music producer, began dating Mendes in 2002. They broke up in 2011. In 2008 she entered the Cirque Lodge Rehabilitation Centre in Utah to address a dependency problem related to drugs including alcohol. In September 2011, shortly after they filmed The Place Beyond the Pines, she began dating Ryan Gosling. They have two daughters, born in 2014 and 2016.

  In a 2022 interview she was asked whether she and Gosling had married. Mendes replied, "I like to keep it all mysterious." She later called him her "husband", which confirmed it. She is a pescetarian for ethical and health reasons, and she practices Transcendental Meditation. In 2021 she lent her voice to the animated series Bluey, as a yoga instructor in the episode "Born Yesterday".

  In 2022 she explained her retirement. "I got tired fighting for the good roles," she said. She had thought about becoming a producer and creating her own material, but it did not feel worth it. When she bowed out, she said, "I wasn't being offered things that weren't specifically Latina." Things have changed since, and she called that exciting. She finished with a line that looks ahead: "so who knows what I will do in the future. But right now, I'm keeping it in the home with my kids."

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