Eva Mendes, the actress who became a children’s book author: ‘When I had a family, my ambition became about home’

Although she remains a familiar face, Eva Mendes, 50, has not been in front of a camera for a decade. But that is only half true. Because the actress, born in Miami to Cuban parents, may not be making films anymore, but that does not mean she’s staying out of the public eye. In addition to having 6.5 million followers on her Instagram profile — where she is very active and frequently her followers’ answers, talks about her daily life and posts videos of former movie stars — she is focused on her daughters: Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, eight, who she shares with her longtime partner, actor Ryan Gosling.

Mendes is involved in different facets of the business world: she is a partner in Skura Style, well-known brand of dish sponges that have become an unexpected viral hit; she is the face of different brands — including Stella McCartney’s winter campaign — and for seven years she was a designer for the fashion firm, New York & Company. And now, she has launched herself into the publishing world as an author.

The actress has made her publishing debut with Desi, Mami, and the Never-Ending Worries, a children’s book released September 17 about little Desi, whose brain tricks her into seeing non-existent monsters that are difficult to get rid of. In the book, Desi’s mother helps her deal with the problem and come to understand that she is not her thoughts. Published in both Spanish and English, with illustrations by Abbey Bryant, the actress says it is one of the projects she is most excited about.

“I am very proud of this book,” she says in an interview with EL PAÍS on the same day of the launch, admitting she is very happy. “I feel very excited about this. It is not like a job... I don’t know, it is something so personal and so intimate that I feel very proud.”

When asked why she decided to write a children’s books, Mendes replies: “I love picture books. That’s what I read with my girls. The youngest is eight years old and the oldest turned 10 a few days ago, but they still love it when I read to them, you know, when they go to sleep, at night.”

She continues: “I like that connection. They calm down a little and then we talk, because in my family we talk about everything, and with my girls I talk about everything, everything, everything…”

It’s not often you hear Mendes talk about her family life. Thirteen years ago, the actress met Ryan Gosling while filming the movie The Place Beyond The Pines, which they both starred in alongside Bradley Cooper and Ray Liotta. In the movie, they played a couple — a waitress and a bank robber — who have just had a baby. Their love story spilled over onto the big screen, and they have remained together ever since.

The couple, however, make very few public appearances together. Indeed, they have only been spotted together on the red carpet once, when they appeared at the Toronto Film Festival in 2012 to present The Place Beyond The Pines. In 2014, Gosling wrote and directed Lost River, which he also starred in, again alongside Mendes, in what was her last film role. In September of that year, they had their first daughter, and in April 2016, their second. Since then, apart from a few moments snapped by the paparazzi, they have not been seen together, although from they occasionally give each other a nod in interviews or on social media.

Mendes stresses that her daughters also jealously protect their private life. Her book centers on the idea that fear is something that is created by the brain. The mother in the book explains to Desi, that we are not our brains, and she gives her tools to understand and confront her fears. It was Mendes’ eldest daughter who gave her the idea.

“My daughter, Esmeralda, told me when she was five years old, that she had a name for her brain. And her dad and I, Ryan and I, were like... Whaaat!?” the actress says, smiling. “I don’t want to say the name [that the daughter had given to her brain] because she is very private, she doesn’t like it at all. Oh my God! She is very conservative. I told her: ‘I promise you that I won’t say the name. But, please, I have to share this because this you know started it all.’ I didn’t know it at the time, five years ago. But that did something to me, because when she had a little problem or something, some worries, I would talk to her and say: ‘Look, Esmeralda, that’s not you, that’s your brain, those messages have nothing to do with you.’ And that’s where it started, she started it.”

Mendes is thrilled to be promoting her book. Last Tuesday, she was at the TV studios of Good Morning America to talk about the book and then at a New York bookstore. But she says this isn’t a comeback, “because I have worked all the time, I didn’t stop working, I just stopped working on movies.” “You know, I have a dish sponge,” she laughs, “and really [doing] publicity for that is the strangest thing because… you either like it or you don’t,” she smiles, suggesting that it is easier to promote a story inspired by your children than a sponge. Will she write more books? “I don’t know, because today is the first day, I’m still excited, I don’t know what will happen, or if people will like this one, but I hope so.”

40 films

After spending more than half her life in Hollywood and appearing in around 40 films, Mendes has seen how the landscape has changed. Along with Salma Hayek and Eva Longoria, she was one of the first Latinas of her generation to call for change and demand a different model that wouldn’t pigeonhole them. She has no doubt that the movie industry has changed a lot — and for the better — since the late 1990s: “When I started, I was 24 years old, and there was hardly anything if it wasn’t [roles] for a drug addict or a cleaning lady. The roles for Latina women... My God, horrible.”

“I love it because I worked really hard for roles that weren’t for Latinas, because I thought: ‘If I want to change this a little bit, in my little way, I have to fight.’ I was always like: ‘I want to meet that male director, that female director, you know, I want this.’ But no, ‘it’s not for Latinas, they don’t want a Latina,’ they told me. And sometimes they gave me the job and other times they didn’t, but I tried and tried,” she says.

Mendes describes the moment when she decided that she was though with this battle: “When I had a family, I didn’t want to fight anymore. I still had ambition, but my ambition became about home. But I always work, I love to work.”

As a woman and as a member of the Latino community — which represents one in five people in the United States and around 36 million voters — Mendes has a clear answer when asked if women’s votes — particularly Latinas’ — are important in the fast-approaching November 5 presidential election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. “I believe that everyone’s vote is important, everyone’s. Of course,” she answers firmly, without dropping her smile.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition