Eva Mendes is ridin’ with her partner Ryan Gosling’s new role.
After Gosling was announced to play Ghost Rider in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in an upcoming standalone film at San Diego Comic-Con July 25, the actress reacted to the exciting news by sharing a nod to ThePlace Beyond thePines, the 2012 movie where she and Gosling met.
In a July 26 Instagram post, Mendes reshared a fan-edited clip of the opening scene from the crime drama, which features a tracking shot of a shirtless, tattooed Gosling as motorcycle stunt driver Luke Glanton, putting on a vest and jacket while walking through a carnival crowd, before he hops on his bike.
The editor added the newly released Ghost Rider logo on top of the footage, writing, “from this intro only i thought ryan gosling can be a perfect casting for ghost rider role.”
And Mendes—who shares daughters Esmeralda, 11, and Amada, 10, with Gosling—proved she’s on board with Gosling’s casting, captioning her post, “Love, Roxy.”
read
How La La Land‘s 10th Anniversary Poster Fixes Ryan Gosling’s Biggest Regret About the Movie
And who is Roxy, one might ask? Mendes was seemingly referring to Roxanne Simpson, the character she played in 2007’s Ghost Rider, the love interest of Nicolas Cage, who portrayed the titular role.
Indeed, the 52-year-old starred in a film about the motorcycle-riding Marvel Comics anti-hero before Gosling. But the Project Hail Mary actor will be the first to portray the character in the MCU.
After all, Gosling and the self-titled film were announced at Marvel’s Hall H panel by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who brought out the star, throwing fans into a frenzy.
And while Gosling has been a longtime fancast of Ghost Rider, he’s also previously expressed his desire to play the supernatural character, whose primarily identity is Johnny Blaze.
“Wow, is this really happening?” the 45-year-old, who matched the Ghost Rider logo in a red jacket and black pants, asked Hall H. “As you know, this is a character I’ve wanted to play for a very long time. So, Kevin, Josh Horowitz, Hall H, thank you.”
Although plot details for Ghost Rider—which will mark the second collaboration between Gosling and director Shawn Levy after they worked together on the upcoming film Star Wars: Starfighter—are under wraps, the sweet irony that Gosling will star in a Ghost Rider movie, albeit another iteration, isn’t lost on Mendes.
After sharing a video montage of clips of herself and Gosling fromThe Place Beyond the Pines on her Instagram Stories July 26, showing “Ghost Rider in a parallel universe,” she thanked the creator of the edit for highlighting “this beautiful parallel universe connection.”
To see more heartwarming quotes Mendes and Gosling have made about each other over the years, keep reading…
Focus/Kobal
“I know that I’m with the person I’m supposed to be with,” Ryan told Hello three years after the movie’s release, adding that his favorite quality about his partner is that “she’s Eva Mendes.”
As he put it, “There’s nothing else I’m looking for.”
“It’s like walking through a field of flowers every day,” he gushed during a 2016 appearance on Good Morning America. “I live with angels. It’s a ray of sunshine in a dark time.”
“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,” continued Ryan. “So sweetheart, thank you.”
“I mean, falling in love with him,” she told Women’s Health in 2019. “Then it made sense for me to have…not kids, but his kids. It was very specific to him.”
“It’s so hard, of course,” she noted. “You end your day, you put them to bed and Ryan and I kind of look at each other like, ‘We did it, we did it. We came out relatively unscathed.'”
“I feel it’s best that I continue to disclose what I’m comfortable with but not involve him or my kids too much,” she continued. “Does that make sense? Hope so. Because this is my honest answer.”
“I mean, it’s true that I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her,” the Drive star admitted in a 2023 GQ interview, “but after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn’t want to have kids without her.”
In fact, Ryan said “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.”
“I just lean on Eva,” he told GQ in 2023. “She knows what’s important, always. She just somehow knows. So if ever I’m in my head about it, I just ask her.”
He added, “But it all makes sense now.”
“Despite all the #Notmyken ridicule and articles written about him, he created this completely original, hilarious, heartbreaking, now iconic character,” she added, “and took it all the way to Oscars.”
“The way he works, his commitment to his craft, how he wants to make everything as best as it can be,” the Girl in Progress star shared, “and that means making his costars as best as they can be.”
“She has really become the best acting coach I have ever had,” he raved to Extra in May 2024. “It’s endless how she helps me”
