Has Eva Mendes finally retired from acting or will she return in front of the camera at some point in the future? To be honest, she is not sure.

Ten years after her last film appearance — in “Lost River,” her partner Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, in which she plays a supporting role as a dancer named Cat — Mendes believes she’s had a pretty good run and doesn’t seem eager to jeopardize her acting legacy. Speaking to George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America on Sept. 17 to promote her children’s book, “Desi, Mommy and the Neverending Sorrows,” Mendes hinted that she may be done for good.

“I don’t know. If there are – you know – if there are interesting roles,” Mendes revealed. “I kind of felt like I had made it, you know? I thought, I just worked with Ryan Gosling, who, like I said, is the best. And I had such a – I don’t know – it was such a high point of my career, working with him and what we created together, that I thought, ‘This is a good time to just make it ‘Seinfeld’ and just leave.’ So, who knows?” (For the uninitiated, Mendes makes an A+ reference to “Seinfeld” star George Costanza, who, played by Jason Alexander, once upheld the rule of leaving the room after making a single great joke.)

To be clear, Eva Mendes never officially “quit” acting, as she herself noted in an October 2022 Instagram post. “I never quit acting,” Mendes wrote in a caption alongside screenshots of stories about why she stopped performing. “I wanted to be home with my babies and luckily my other business ventures allowed me to do that more than acting would have allowed.” Mendes Also said she wasn’t necessarily offered roles that interested her, calling the roles she was offered “stereotypical.” She explained that her excellent experience on “Lost River” was “a tough one.”

Nevertheless, when she Was Mendes has been a regular actress, appearing in some critically and commercially successful films. In 2001, she played a supporting role in the Oscar-winning film Training Day, followed by box office hits such as 2 Fast 2 Furious in 2003 and the romantic comedy Hitch in 2005. Mendes also showed off her comedic talents in films such as The Other Guys and the remake of The Women, and in 2010, she co-starred with Ryan Gosling in Derek Cianfrance’s acclaimed crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines. The two met while playing ex-lovers in the film, and as far as their real-life relationship goes, the rest is history.

The good news here is that, according to Eva Mendes, she’s doing OK during her indefinite break from acting. In September 2022, she told Variety that she “doesn’t really miss it” — with “it” being acting, of course — and said she was tired of fighting for good roles. Although she also said she considered moving into producing and creating her own opportunities, she and Ryan Gosling’s daughters Esmerelda and Amada became her main focus. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing now,'” Mendes told interviewer Marc Malkin at the time, before admitting that the industry has indeed changed. “There are more opportunities for Latina actresses now, but when I got out 10 years ago, I wasn’t being offered things that weren’t specifically Latina. It’s exciting that things are different now, so who knows what I’ll be doing in the future. But for now, I’m keeping it at home with my kids.”

There you have it: Mendes is currently supporting “Barbie” star Gosling, and during his recent Oscar campaign for the role of Ken, she was often seen cheering him on (she even secretly appeared backstage at the Oscars during his musical performance of “I’m Just Ken”). If Mendes does decide to return to acting, hopefully the industry will welcome her with open arms – and some great roles.