For Eva Mendes, the desire to be a stay-at-home mom comes from memories of her childhood. The Cuban star, who opened up about her decision in an interview with the Today Show, hasn’t appeared in a movie in over a decade. Instead, she’s chosen to be the main caretaker of the kids she shares with Ryan Gosling, Esmeralda, 9, and Amada, 7. And she considers herself lucky.

“It was like a no-brainer,” Mendes explained. “I’m so lucky, and I was like, if I can have this time with my children — and I’ve still worked, I just didn’t act, because acting takes you on locations, it takes you away. It was almost just like a non-verbal agreement with [Ryan Gosling]. It was like, “Okay, he’s gonna work, and I’m gonna work, I’m just gonna work here.”

That work comes in the form of Skura Style, a cleaning brand that she co-owns. And a cleaning brand is actually right up Mendes’s alley, considering some of her earliest memories are “waking up on the weekends to the clean smell of a house, like Pine-Sol or Fabuloso and Latin music playing. And now that’s joy. That sparks such joy for me.”

Her husband, Gosling, meanwhile, has gotten to be just Ken, something that Mendes celebrates. “I’ve never experienced anything like that,” she said of Gosling.  “The way he works, his commitment, his craft, how he wants to make everything as best as it can be and that means making his costars as best as they can be.”

Recently that translated to Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” at the 2024 Oscars ceremony, which Mendes was certainly watching, even if we can’t be sure from where. After the performance, she posted a picture from what appeared to be Gosling’s dressing room. The caption read: “You took Ken all the way to the Oscar’s, RG. Now come home, we need to put the kids to bed.”

You can check out the full Eva Mendes Today Show interview here: