Awards
Ryan Gosling is grateful for the life he’s built, but he’s even more grateful to have found the girl of his dreams to share it with.
The 43-year-old “Barbie” actor took time to honor his longtime partner Eva Mendes in her acceptance speech at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Saturday night.
Gosling made sure to pay tribute to his leading lady when he received the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Cinema at the star-studded event.
“Most importantly, I met the girl of my dreams, Eva Mendes, and had two children,” Gosling said after noting that his acting career enabled him to portray many different roles on screen.
He added: “I dreamed of making films one day, and now films have made my life a dream.”
The couple has two daughters, Esmeralda, nine, and Amada, seven.
In his speech, Gosling admitted he was “not ready” for this moment, and joked that he “should have had more champagne.”
In his speech, the “La La Land” actor praised “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig, as well as actor Steve Carell.
“It’s hard to imagine being at the point in my career where I’m standing here tonight,” he said. “He’s just Kirk Douglas. He’s one of the first true cinema icons… He’s completely in his own class, and I’m… just Ken?”
“Until this moment, I had only thought about how much cinema had done for me. I had never really thought about what I had done for cinema, as far as I can remember.
Gosling also paid tribute to his mother Donna, who “found my weakness” in acting during his younger years, and dutifully taught him at home to “show me how to make my own story.”
“That open door wasn’t an elevator going straight to the top, but I was able to help my mom pay the rent. “By playing other people, I knew who I was in the process,” he added.
Although Gosling and Mendes have been together for 13 years, public rants — let alone appearances — are rare for the couple.
Last year, Mendes revealed the unique reason she and Gosling don’t appear on red carpets together.
The Other Guys actress said she cherishes her privacy so much that she refuses to let cameras see them together.
After sharing a clip on Instagram from the couple’s first film together, ‘The Place Beyond The Pines’ during which they struck up a romantic relationship in 2012, Mendes was asked why she didn’t post more shots with the actor.
“What a great comment, thank you,” Mendes, 49, wrote in response to a fan who wanted her to appear on the red carpet for Gosling’s “Barbie.” “But we don’t do these things together.”
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“Photos like these that I posted, I only feel comfortable posting because they already exist,” she added.
Mendes added, in a later comment on the same post, that she had only appeared on the red carpet once, accompanied by her lover.
“Wait — for those who might be lying to me — we only walked the red carpet together once when promoting this movie,” she noted.
When asked to explain why she didn’t feel comfortable posting photos of the duo together, she wrote, “By ‘uncomfortable,’ I mean exposing our private lives that we value. I’m still dying to do another movie with him though… ♥.”
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