Motherhood wasn’t always on Eva Mendes’ mind. The Hitch star, 46, opened up about why she had a change of heart during an interview with Nova 96.9’s Fitzy & Wippa. “I never wanted babies before until I fell in love with Ryan,” she shared. The Place Beyond the Pines actress and her longtime partner Ryan Gosling are parents to daughters Esmeralda Amada, six, and Amada Lee, four.

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Now that their kids are getting older, Eva has been “thinking of definitely going back” to acting. “I am now that they’re getting a bit older, but I really feel like—I never want to send the wrong message out to young women out there. It’s not an either-or situation,” she said. “I was lucky enough to work my bum off for 20 years.”

Eva added, “It kind of worked out to where I was 40 and having my first baby and then I think I was 42 for my second one, so it worked out in that way that I had a career and then I changed my focus to my family.”

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While the mom of two feels “like it’s time” to go back to the big screen, she noted that the list of roles she’d be willing to take on is shrinking. “The list is getting shorter and shorter of like stuff that I’ll do,” Eva said. “I don’t want to do anything violent. I don’t want to do something risqué. I think the only thing that’s left is like Disney.” “You don’t want to perpetuate certain stereotypes,” she continued. ”I just need Ryan Gosling to direct another film, and then hire me.”

Earlier this month, Eva, who hasn’t starred in a film since 2014, admitted that her ambition to act is coming back. “I feel like, as far as my ambition, it didn’t go away, it just shifted onto the children,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald. “I applaud and look up to those women who can do it all, but I’m not one of them – and, thankfully, I have a choice not to work and I realise how fortunate I am that it’s even a choice. I’ve been so happy to be able to incubate with my babies, but now they are four and six, I’m starting to feel like my ambition is coming back.”