Unlike some Hollywood A-list couples, Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes are super low-key. So, off-the-radar, in fact, that until Thursday night’s (March 5) Tonight Show the pair had not made an official public appearance in more than a decade.
Gosling, 45, was on hand to promote his new sci-fi thriller, Project Hail Mary, in which he plays Dr. Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher and sole surviving astronaut on a ship sent to a far-away system to save the Earth from imminent disaster with the help of an alien friend he meets along the way. After chatting up the film, Gosling asked Fallon if he could do a little something special for his wife on the show.
“It’s Eva’s birthday today. She’s here,” Gosling said, telling the audience full of teachers that his wife loves educators so much that she still has her hall monitor sash from when she was a kid on display in their house. He asked the crowd if they would sing “Happy Birthday” to his wife before a staffer walked the “Training Day” star to the stage.
Gosling, who shares two daughters with Mendes, sweetly greeted his wife and took her hand, walking her out to the stage and letting the crowd cheer her on as she gushed about teachers. “We owe so much to you guys. You’re so underpaid … just thank you so much,” said the actress, 52, dressed in jeans and a striped sweater over a black John Lennon and Yoko Ono T-shirt.
Gosling then introduced the band directors from North Bergen High School in the audience and to Mendes’ glee, the school’s band marched out from behind the curtain with a giant banner reading “Happy Birthday, Eva!” and played the birthday song for her as confetti rained down. The couple then shared a few sweet kisses as Fallon handed out passes to see the film to everyone in the audience.
According to People, it was the first time the couple have been seen in public together at an official event since they walked the red carpet together in 2013 to promote their film The Place Beyond the Pines.
Earlier in the appearance, Gosling hyped up his film co-star, German actress Sandra Hüller, who has a singing scene in the movie. “It’s one of the best scenes in the film,” Gosling said, describing the day on set when he heard Hüller singing in her dressing room down the hall with the “voice of an angel.”
“I said, ‘you can sing?’ She was like, ‘yeah,’” he recalled. “And I said, ‘will you please sing in the movie?’” And then, two days later, they were filming a karaoke scene that was intended as a background shot and Hüller said she’d sing Harry Styles’ breakthrough 2017 solo hit, “Sign of the Times,” at which point Gosling, also a producer on the film, asked if she could pick a different song that was not as expensive to clear.
“And she was like, ‘It’s this or nothing,’” Gosling said. “And it became the anthem of the film. And it has become the heartbeat of the movie.” For the record, Gosling said Styles cleared the usage of the song because, “because Harry is as cool as you think he is … he made it happen.”
He also hyped his upcoming fourth hosting stint on Saturday Night Live, where he’ll be joined by musical guests Gorillaz, in their SNL debut. Gosling was happy to talk to SNL veteran Fallon about his last hosting stint, in 2024, when he blew minds alongside cast member Mikey Day as Beavis and Butt-Head. The actor said he heard all the sketch pitches that week and asked the cast and writers what else they had, at which point they described their “white whale” to him.
“And they were talking about this thing and they were like, ‘It’s Beavis and Butt-Head at a really serious thing,’” Gosling said. “And I was like, ‘and then what happens?’ And they were like, ‘That’s it.’ And I was like, ‘I’m your guy. I will be your Beavis.’”
Watch Gosling surprise Mendes (beginning at 15:20 mark) below.
