Q: Did you gain the weight back? 

Yeah, and again, it’s not like a huge thing, but it was fifteen pounds and I play her at the beginning in her mid 20s, and she goes into her early 40s, somewhere there, and certainly, when I was in my mid 20s I was very skinny as well. I just wanted to do that. Just a little side note, I haven’t told anybody else because it just came up, and those jean shorts I’ve had since 1992. (laughs) Since high school.  

Q: So you provide your own wardrobe? 

Well that’s Derek (director). Derek is fantastic. He encourages you to bring your own wardrobe, and since the movie took place in the early 1990s, and there was a time when I was a fashion victim. I had some outfits, but those jean shorts were mine of that time, so I brought them.  

Q: So you could still fit into them?

I don’t remember them being as snug, but yes, they still button. 

Q: But how do you keep yourself so trim that you haven’t put on any weight since your teens? 

Well I have a feeling that the shorts were baggy on me then and tight on me now, but I take care of myself. I like to do that. I just do the typical, eat well and look after myself thing 

Q: Do you have a fast metabolism?

 I think I do. I think I have a natural kind of athletic build because I take to sports easily, although I don’t like them.  

Q: Apparently Derek took you for a ride during the audition? No, no, no, no. I took him for a ride. {laughs} 

Q: Could you elaborate on that?

Yes. Basically, you know, I was a huge fan of Blue Valentine, and I had asked my manager to set a meeting with this director because it just blew my mind. We took about an hour and a half drive, and I took him through streets of LA where I grew up, the first apartment I lived in, and then the second home I lived in, the school I went to in the Silver Lake and Echo Park area. It was extremely personal. He got to see a different side of me, a very personal side. 

Q: What are your similarities?

Just you know first-generation American coming from a single mother of a struggling family of Cuban descent, trying to make it, trying to do the best with what she’s got, and a survivor in every sense. 

Q: Why was it so significant for you to show him your hometown? 

First of all, I thought it was refreshing to take an audition that way instead of sitting in a room with horrible overhead lighting and phones ringing off. Auditions are tough. They’re tough on actors. Derek, because he’s an unconventional filmmaker, I thought, he definitely would be into an unconventional audition. 

Q: What made you click with Ryan?

 Ryan and I have been friends for a very long time. We always talked about working together. Of course, he’s an incredible actor. 

Q: Since when did you know each other?

A few years.

Q: What is sexy for you? 

Oh God, I don¹t know. I have to be more awake for that one. {laughs} Q: What was it like working with two of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs, Ryan and Bradley at the moment? They are just amazing actors, so it’s about the work, and they give so much, they’re incredible.

Q: You’re very glamorous – is it more rewarding when you play roles that strip away your good looks? 

Well yes, because I’m an actress. I mean if I wanted to be anything else I would just be a model. But I’m an actress, so anytime I get to stretch myself is incredible. Even like a little thing, like I did a part in The Other Guys, a small part in that big comedy with Will Ferrell. You wouldn’t think it, but I never sang before, and my director wanted me to sing, and so I recorded a song with Cee-Lo. It was like, a spoof of a song. I challenged myself because it was a comedy. And then that led to me singing on the Thierry Mugler Angel commercial and I sang Windmills of your Mind, so it’s just interesting how once you start challenging yourself, you are inviting all these other challenges. I don’t like being comfortable. I don’t like staying in my comfort zone, it’s very boring. 

Q: Do you find it comfortable to be on the red carpet or do you think that’s challenging? 

I’m sure that obviously that has its purpose, but that’s a clock in and a clock out thing. You pick a pretty dress as quickly as you can, you throw your hair up or you throw your hair down, and then you do it. That is not my favorite part of my job. That is not why I do what I do. I never go to events that aren’t connected to work, I am just not out there, I don’t strut my stuff out there (laughs) I don’t dress up for paparazzi. I mean, I am very much about my work, but I begrudgingly accept that the red carpet is a part of it, and I do it when I have to. And I do it quickly, and I try to go in and out. In fact the paparazzi photographers are always yelling at me on the red carpet to come back because they will say, ‘Turn around!’ but I’m not turning around. I am not a show pony, people. (laughter) I am not My Little Pony! So we have kind of fun, I tell them that and they laugh, but I am certainly not the one who is parading on the carpet, no. I walk through, I smile and hopefully you got it.  

Q: Was it a challenge to glam down for this?

 The truth is ¬ people ask me that a lot but I glam down all the time. If you look at the last films I’ve done, whether it’s with Werner Herzog where, I played a druggie in that film and I certainly don’t look fantastic. I have a black eye in some of it. I worked with James Gray a few years ago and Joaquin Phoenix. There was a trashy glam about it I guess but I was really raw. I did a few scenes there with no makeup and the whole tears and everything and then Holy Motors is not glamorous either. 

Q: Does that mean you’re not vain at all? I think you¹re talking about something else.

I’m an actress first and foremost. It’s my profession that I love. I’m just saying the last few years it’s clear that I don’t seek out roles just to be glamorous. Of course on the red carpet you do what you do when you sell a movie. When I’m working, there are many films that I have no makeup on at all. Last Night, the film I did with Sam Worthington and Keira Knightley, there are many scenes I have absolutely no makeup on. What I’m saying is, although I do advertising campaigns and I walk the red carpet and it might look glamorous, that is not my work; certainly not in the last few years. 

Q: Are you a nostalgic person?

I mean do you miss some good stuff in your life?  (laughs) Yeah, I am nostalgic, of course. I miss certain things. I love my mom and she’s really funny, she just turned 70, and there’s always a new pain and she laughs at it. I say, ‘Mommy, how are you doing today?’  She’ll say,’Well today it’s my knee,’ or today it’s this, or that’s great, but I have to say I get very nostalgic about my mother and I miss her singing in the morning when I used to wake up and stuff. 

Q: Where does she live? Fifteen minutes away from me. (laughter) In Los Angeles.  Q: Apparently you still want to play a nun? I still want to play a nun. I still haven’t done that. Q: What would the teenage Eva Mendes make of the Eva Mendes today?  Things couldn’t have gone more differently? What do you mean? Q: Your interest in joining the sisterhood when you were young. Oh no, no, no. That got blown out of proportion. When I was 5 years old I told my mom I wanted to be a nun. Who knows? Kids say the craziest things. And then a couple years later, I would always promise my mom because we grew up very, very, very lower working class and we had bills, which were always an issue, paying the bills. So anyway my big sister said, ‘Evie how are you going to buy mom this house you’re always talking about if you¹re going to be a nun? Nuns don’t get paid.’ {laughing} I thought, ‘Oh my God, my dreams of the convent world shut’.  I was 5. 

Q: What was thing about being a nun that attracted you? 

It was a silly thing. As a kid I also wanted to create an opera in space. I thought that there should be opera in space like astronauts that were opera singers. 

Q: What kind of dreams did you have in your childhood when you say it was always difficult to pay the bills, etc?

 My dreams were always about saving my mom and paying her bills and getting her a house and buying her a house. That was my dream. Thankfully, I’ve done that. So I’m all good. 

Q: I guess you’ve made the right choice. You can pay whatever bills your mother has to pay. 

Yes. 

Q: How did that come across? How did you evolve from nun to star?

Hey, I was 5. You can’t really say how did that come about, I was 5. I was a little kid. It wasn’t real. I didn¹t really want to be a nun.  Shit, I was 5! 

Q:  How did you get interested in acting?

I actually started acting very late in life. I was acting when I was 23, which is very late for actresses. Usually you start much younger. I was going to college. I was thinking of majoring in art history. I wasn’t sure....yada, yada, yada. I was really taking my time and then I met a manager and everything kind of fell into place after that. 

Q: Do you actually still take classes?

 Yeah I do. I love it. 

Q: Why is that?

Oh gosh, because you can never learn enough. It’s exercising your muscle too when you’re not working ¬ it’s like going to the gym but way more fun. 

Q: Isn’t your presence very intimidating to your fellow actors?

Oh my God. I’ve actually been very sensitive to that. At first I think it’s always a little shocking because I’m the only recognisable face in the class but everybody warms up the minute they see that¬ I don’t show up looking like this. I show up in my sweats, my sweatshirt ready to work. You’re totally right though. I think by day two, they’re like, ‘Oh cool.’ I’m in it for the work.  

Q: Why is it that you like the cemetery, particularly Pere Lachaise?

 First of all, I love cemeteries. There is something so romantic especially with proper tombstones ¬ I like a proper tombstone. It’s an artform. Some of my favorite sculptures are actually parts of these beautiful tombs in Pere Lachaise. They have this woman crying with a veil over her and you can feel her pain for eternity on this tombstone. Of course Oscar Wilde’s tomb is there and Maria Callas. There are these beautiful streets. I don’t know, whenever I¹m there I just feel at peace. I don’t know. I just feel comfortable. 

Q: It’s romantic isn’t it?

It’s so romantic. But isn’t it a fine line between melancholy and romance? Sometimes I don’t know. I like to dabble. 

Q: Is that a form of meditation? Do you still meditate?

 Yeah. I love to meditate. I’ve not been disciplined lately which I’m not happy about. But yeah TM [Transcendental Meditation]. David Lynch, -I’m going to throw that name out there. David Lynch got me into meditation.