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Another awards season has come and gone. And with that, some actors are back to work. After the Oscars, Ryan Gosling headed out to SXSW for the premiere of his new movie The Fall Guy (more on that in Kismet’s coverage here). While there, Ryan gave People some more behind-the-scenes info about his awesome performance of “I’m Just Ken,” which brought the house down. We know that Eva Mendes was backstage to support Ryan at some point because she posted pictures to Instagram. I’ve been trying to find an official confirmation as to whether or not Eva was there during the actual ceremony. I suspect, though, based on her clothing and caption telling him to come home and “put the kids to bed,” that the pictures were taken at the final dress rehearsal.
This may be as close to a confirmation that we’re going to get, but during his interview, Ryan told People that Eva and his daughters sat in the front row at a dress rehearsal the day before the ceremony. They also gave him plenty of notes on his performance. Eva and Ryan have two daughters together, Esmeralda Amada, nine, and Amada Lee, seven.
Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at the world premiere of The Fall Guy at SXSW in Austin on Tuesday, Gosling, 43, opened up about how he got some crucial advice from his long-term partner Eva Mendes and their daughters Esmeralda Amada, 9, and Amada Lee, 7, ahead of the show.
“It was great,” the Barbie star tells PEOPLE. “It was so fun because they came to the dress rehearsal the day before and so they were in the front row. ”
“They gave me some tips and some notes, all great notes,” he continues. “They are such a huge part of this for me…it was my girl’s interest in Barbie and disinterest in Ken that got me into this in the first place. It was beautiful to have them there at the end.”
Gosling stole the show at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday with his live performance of “I’m Just Ken” which lost out to the Billie Eilish song “What Was I Made For?” for the award of Best Original Song.
The actor was accompanied by song co-writer Mark Ronson, Wolfgang Van Halen, Slash and a group of men dressed in suits and cowboy hats for the performance — including his fellow ‘Kens’ Scott Evans, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Ncuti Gatwa.
Reacting to a video of Martin Scorsese vibing to the performance inside the Dolby Theatre on Sunday, Mendes, 50, later wrote that the Instagram re-post by Francesca Scorsese’s was “the best video ever.”
Awww, that’s so sweet and great that they got to come and watch the dress rehearsal. I wonder if friends at school have talked to them about Barbie and if that’s piqued their interest in it more or less, lol. Ryan has talked about how his daughters influenced and inspired him to play Ken, particularly when he realized that they loved their Barbies, but didn’t care so much about Ken (he was always number two). So it’s a nice ending to his journey as Ken that they would also be there to support him and give him some last-minute tips and pointers. What a nice little full circle moment for the Mendes-Goslings.
Photos credit: Jennifer Bloc/Future Image/Cover Images, IMAGO/Jennifer Bloc / Avalon and Getty