Eva Mendes Celebrates Full-Circle Connection With Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider Role

From Barbie’s boyfriend Ken to a lovable teacher-turned-astronaut in Project Hail Mary, Ryan Gosling’s on quite the blockbuster run — and he’s already revving up for the next one. During Marvel’s Comic-Con panel on July 25, Gosling was announced as the motorcycling hero Johnny Blaze, aka Ghost Rider.

“This is a character I’ve wanted to play for a very long time,” Gosling said of his role in the film, which is set to hit theaters in 2028. Indeed, the La La Land star has been vocal about his desire to take on this part, and now that he’s officially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his partner Eva Mendes is in celebration mode.

On July 26, Mendes reposted a clip of her and Gosling starring in the movie that first brought them together, 2012’s The Place Beyond the Pines, which, coincidentally, also starred Gosling as a motorcycle stuntman. She thanked the Instagram fan account @cinema.encylopedia for pointing out the “beautiful parallel universe connection” between the films.

The other parallel? Mendes actually starred in an earlier iteration of Ghost Rider with Nicolas Cage, playing the hero’s love interest Roxanne “Roxy” Simpson in the 2007 film. In another clip originally shared by @heeahad that pointed out Gosling’s “perfect casting,” Mendes signaled her agreement with the caption: “Love, Roxy.”

Of course, if you’ve been following the couple for some time now, you know this kind of support is nothing new. As Mendes shared on The Talk in 2022, she was particularly stirred by the first photo of Gosling in his custom Ken undies, recalling: “He sent it to me from work and I said, ‘Can I please have that underwear? Please. I never ask for anything.’”

More recently, she commented under the Project Hail Mary poster that Rocky, Gosling’s alien castmate, is the only co-star she’s ever been jealous of. “They spent wayyy too much time together,” she joked.

While Mendes may not be immersed in acting at the moment — her other ventures include being co-owner of Skura Style, a cleaning products company — the couple’s children serve as a guidepost for projects Gosling takes on. As he told The Wall Street Journal in 2024, “I don’t really take roles that are going to put me in some kind of dark place.” The Oscar-nominated actor explained that he makes decisions with Mendes about “what is going to be best for all of us.”