Ryan Gosling Reveals Moment He Knew He Wanted Kids with Eva Mendes, Details Family Life

In a rollicking GQ profile -- spanning train rides up the California coast, fictitious Starbucks order names, and Zoom calls -- Gosling shared how he went from the internet's boyfriend to father of two daughters and partner to the mother of his kids.

Fiercely protective of his family, Gosling at first was understandably a bit guarded when it came to divulging details about his home life.

In the first round of conversation with GQ, the 42-year-old said prior to having his first child he had never envisioned himself as a father.

"Eva said she was pregnant," he told the publication. "I would never want to go back, you know? 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."

He and Mendes starred in 2012's "The Place Beyond the Pines" and then welcomed their first child, Esmeralda Amada, in 2014. In 2016 they had Amada Lee.

Following the birth of his second child with Mendes, he took a years long break from Hollywood. "I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them," he said of the hiatus.

Of Mendes he said, "I was looking for her, you know." But that's something Gosling said he learned in hindsight and is something that "all makes sense now."

He noted in the same profile that the couple do not have any nannies and are intent on raising their children themselves.

When it comes to parenting their two kids, Gosling admitted he, like many parents, often finds himself bewildered. "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."

However, Gosling had clearly been ruminating on the balance between protecting his family's privacy and doing justice to his relationship with Mendes.

"When you asked me about Eva and kids," he said in a subsequent chat. "I think I said, I didn't think about kids until she told me she was pregnant. That's not really true. I didn't want to overshare, but now I also don't want to misrepresent."

"I mean, it's true that 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 continued. "And there were moments on 'The Place Beyond the Pines' where we were pretending to be a family, and I didn't really want it to be pretend anymore. I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have."

When asked by GQ why he didn't just say that sweet sentiment to begin with, Gosling told them, "I didn't really want to get into it." And added, "But I realized that I was misrepresenting the reality of it."

Gosling can next be seen as Ken in "Barbie," surfing into theaters July 21, 2023. For more on what the actor said about his role in the upcoming movie you can read GQ's full profile here.