A Comprehensive Timeline of Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes's Relationship

Believe it or not, there are only red carpet photos of Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling together for one project: the one movie that they did together, The Place Beyond the Pines. Aside from those snapshots, there are no pictures of Gosling on Mendes's Instagram account, Gosling doesn't have his own public-facing IG, and the two manage to keep their relationship out of headlines. Though the info is scarce, here's everything to know about this golden couple, from the Pines to two daughters, 6-year-old Esmeralda and 4-year-old Amada.

September 2011

Gosling and Mendes begin production on The Place Beyond the Pines. The two play a couple that shares a son, even though they're not together anymore.

"They were very playful. Eva was skipping around like a little girl ... She would lean into him and she held his arm the entire time," a source told Us Weekly.

January 2012

Mendes and Gosling appear in "Drunk History Christmas," a Funny or Die skit. Jim Carrey appears alongside the duo.

May 2012

Even though the two were spotted together at Disneyland during their time together making Pines, neither Mendes nor Gosling had confirmed that they were together.

During a stop on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Mendes dodged questions about Gosling, choosing to laugh it all off.

June 2012

Mendes accompanies Gosling to his mother's graduation from Brock University in Toronto.

September 2012

The two walk the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival for The Place Beyond the Pines. The film wouldn't premiere for another year. At the NYC premiere in March 2013, the two don't take any photos together.

February 2014

Mendes brushes off pregnancy rumors after reports came out saying she was avoiding X-ray machines at the airport.

"It's so ridiculous," she said on Ellen. "It all started because I didn't want to go through the scanners at the airport. You know those X-ray scanners, which are really creepy? They basically see you naked, right? And not only that, but there's a radiation aspect to it, so I always opt out."

July 2014

Us reports that Mendes is pregnant with her and Gosling's first child. Neither of them confirms the news, surprising nobody at all.

September 2014

They welcome a daughter, Esmeralda Amada. During an interview with The Violet Files, Mendes said that the name was inspired by a character from one of her favorite books.

"Ryan and I both love the Esmeralda character from the Victor Hugo novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and we just think it’s a beautiful name," she said. "Amada was my grandmother’s name. It means 'beloved' in Spanish."

She also explained that she and Gosling were going to make a conscious decision to keep their daughter away from the celebrity sphere.

"Whether we like it or not, privacy is going to be very difficult for Esmeralda. I think it's unfair but that's our reality. So Ryan and I decided early on to give her as much privacy as we could," she said. "And my pregnancy was the first opportunity to give her that. It's such an intimate time for the mother, too."

April 2015

The two work together again on Lost River. But Gosling isn't in front of the camera this time. He wrote and directed the sci-fi drama, which starred Mendes and Christina Hendricks.

"Being in the film Lost River was nothing short of a magical experience. I would love to either act opposite him again or be directed by him at some point. I just love working with him," Mendes told O in May 2019. "In a career of 20+ years, to have my two most incredible creative experiences be with him, of course, I’d want a third."

December 2015

In a rare move, Gosling mentions Mendes in an interview.

"This will be our first Christmas where [Esmeralda is] sort of taking it all in, so that's exciting," he told Hello!

He added that he knew that she was the perfect person for him, saying, "I know that I’m with the person I’m supposed to be with." When asked what qualities he looks for in a partner, he responded, "That she's Eva Mendes. There's nothing else I’m looking for."

April 2016

Mendes gives birth to the couple's second daughter, Amada, in Santa Monica, California.

"My grandmother's name is Amada, and Esmeralda Amada is the name of our oldest. We had a few names picked out for our new baby, and when she was born, we didn't feel like those names were her," Mendes told Latina, according to Hello! "We came up with a few more, even that morning, and tried them out. We were like, 'What about Viviana?' But we just kept going back to Amada."

Mendes noted that she explained to Gosling that the fact that their two daughters share the same name wasn't all that unusual in her culture.

"In true Latin fashion, we reuse names all the time," she said. "I actually told [Ryan], 'This is common in Latin culture, so it wouldn't be crazy.'"

January 2017

During his Golden Globes acceptance speech, Gosling dedicates his win (Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for La La Land) to Mendes.

"You don't get to be up here without standing on the shoulders of a mountain of people. There's no time to thank everyone. I would like to try to thank one person properly and say while I was singing and dancing and playing piano and having one of the best experiences I've ever had on a film, my lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second, and trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer," he said. "If she hadn't have taken all that on so that I could have this experience, it would surely be someone else up here other than me today. So sweetheart, thank you. To my daughters Amada and Esmeralda, I love you. And if I may, I would like to dedicate this to the memory of her brother, Juan Carlos Mendez."

September 2017

After hosting Saturday Night Live, Gosling and Mendes celebrated together at the show's after-party in NYC. According to Vanity Fair, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Scarlett Johansson were all in attendance.

June 2018

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Gosling says that Mendes diagnosed him with brain damage after an incident on set.

"I was just hellbent on this idea that there were people in doughnut stores all around the world that were trying to charm their way into getting free doughnuts," he said. "She was so patient and listening. She was like, 'I think you might have brain damage. I think you should go to the hospital.'"

September 2018

Mendes explained why she's stayed out of the spotlight and isn't working on any new film projects, saying that she's changed her priorities.

"I'm just so obsessed with my kids that I don't want to leave them," Mendes told E! News. "They're just still so little."

April 2019

In an interview with Women's Health, Mendes said that she had never considered having kids — until she met Gosling.

"Ryan Gosling happened," she said. "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."

May 2019

Mendes said that her daughters, Esmeralda and Amada, have no clue that their parents happen to be very, very famous.

"They are not aware. We are definitely just mom and dad to them, and we’re trying to keep it that way as long as possible," she told O. "We are just mom and dad, so we are having fun just being that to them."

April 2020

After an Instagram commenter asked her why she doesn't post photos of her family, Mendes commented back, saying she was just setting boundaries.

"I have always had a clear boundary when it comes to my man and my kids. I'll talk about them of course, with limits, but I won't post pictures of our daily life. And since my children are still so little and don't understand what posting their image really means, I don't have their consent. And I won't post their image until they're old enough to give me consent," she wrote.

October 2020

Mendes says she loves being a homebody, she says, because she gets to do it with Ryan Gosling.

"No thank you, I'm good. Rather be home with my man than anywhere else in the world," she wrote to a commenter who said she needed to get out more.

October 2021

It was confirmed that Gosling would co-star alongside Margot Robbie as Ken and Barbie, respectively, in the upcoming live-action film Barbie (slated for release in summer 2023). When we got our first peek of Gosling as Ken (platinum hair, bronze tan, abs, oh my!), we couldn't believe our eyes. Mendes's reaction?

"I saw the photo and the 14-year-old in me was like, 'Ahhh,'" Mendes said with a blissful sigh. "It's a funny photo, and he's trying to be funny, so it worked on all levels."