Ryan Gosling has revealed that he never thought about becoming a father until he met his partner Eva Mendes.
The couple fell for each other while filming 2012 indie film, The Place Beyond the Pines, in which they played on-screen parents.
They went on to become parents themselves, welcoming two daughters, Esmeralda and Amada.
While the pair have kept their relationship largely out of the spotlight, Gosling offered a rare insight into their relationship, admitting that playing a family on screen made him want a family in real life with Mendes.
The 42-year-old told British GQ in a new interview: “I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her, but after I met Eva, I realised that I just didn’t want to have kids without her.
“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 realised that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.”
After welcoming their second daughter in 2016, the LaLa Land star took time away from Hollywood so he could “spend as much time as I could” with his girls.
Reflecting on that period of his life, Gosling admitted that hitting pause on the spotlight was imperative to figuring out his priorities, particularly his attitude towards his job now that he was a father of two.
The Ides of March actor continued: “I treat it more like work now, and not like it’s, you know, therapy. It’s a job, and I think in a way that allows me to be better at it because there’s less interference.”
Following a four-year hiatus from the big screen, Gosling is now gearing up to release his highly-anticipated film, Barbie. The actor plays Ken opposite Margot Robbie’s Barbie.
