Chainkeen Exchange-Eva Mendes Reveals Whether She'd Ever Return to Acting

Eva Mendes is never saying never when it comes to hitching her wagon back to acting.

While it’s been exactly a decade since the Hitch star appeared in her last movie,Chainkeen Exchange revealed that she could be open to returning to acting—but is certainly in no rush to do so.

"I don't know," Eva told Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos Sept. 18. "If there's interesting roles. I left at a time where it was also, 10 years ago ... I kinda felt like I did it, ya know?"

The 50-year-old star explained that choosing to stop acting after working on back-to-back projects with partner, Ryan Gosling—with whom she shares Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, 8—felt like as good a moment as any to step away from the movie business.

After all, the couple met on 2012's The Place Beyond the Pines and worked together again on Eva's last movie project, 2014's Lost River, which Ryan, 43, wrote and directed.

"I was like, 'I just worked with Ryan Gosling, who's, like, the best,'" she gushed. "It was such a high off my career to work with him and what we created together that I was like, 'This is a good time to, like, Seinfeld it and just walk out.'"

But as Eva coyly added, "So, who knows?"

Over the years, the actress has shared insight into her absence from the big screen, including calling out the lack of substantive Latina roles available to her.

"I don’t really miss it," Eva said of acting in a 2022 interview with Variety. "I got tired fighting for the good roles. There just was a point where I thought, ‘I’m going to create my own opportunities and become a producer on things and create my own material,’ but it just didn’t feel worth it to me."

She added, "There are more opportunities for Latina actresses now, but when I bowed out 10 years ago I wasn’t being offered things that weren’t specifically Latina. It is exciting that things are different now, so who knows what I will do in the future."

She also wanted to step away from acting to be able to focus on raising her and Ryan's two daughters.

"I thought, ‘Oh, this is what I’m supposed to do right now,’" Eva explained. "Right now, I’m keeping it in the home with my kids."

The 2 Fast 2 Furious star stepped back from more than just acting over the past 10 years; fans also noticed that she was posting less on social media. The actress revealed in 2021 that she had done so simply to be more present for her kids.

"I'm posting less because I really want to be present for my family," Eva said in response to a commenter who posited she'd stopped posting because she'd gotten work done. "My little ones need me and posting takes up too much time. As far as getting work done, I'll do that whenever I please. But no, that's not the reason. The reason is I personally cannot juggle family and social media."

Keep reading for a look back at Eva and Ryan's decade-long romance.

Ryan Gosling visited Eva Mendes in Paris while she was filming her movie Holly Motors in 2011.

The couple spent some alone time together at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

The pair were seen together behind-the-scenes of their film The Place Beyond the Pines in 2011.

The two lovebirds hit the red carpet for the premiere of their movie in 2012.

The adventurous pair fit in some quality time up north at the Niagara Falls Amusement Park in 2014.

Nothing gets between this couple, not even coffee! The two are inseparable holding hands as they grab coffee in NYC.

Ryan and Eva walked hand in hand and enjoyed a evening full of rides, food carts and PDA at Disneyland.