Eva Mendes was born March 5, 1974, in Miami, Florida. A particularly observant Catholic, Eva grew up with dreams of becoming a nun before she was bitten by the acting bug while attending California State University Northridge. “Acting fell into my lap when a neighbor took pictures of me and showed them to an agent,” she recalls. “Then I found an acting coach and worked my butt off.”
Eva Mendes’ first foray into showbiz came as a featured performer in music videos before she made her big-screen debut in 1998 in the schlocky horror film Children of the Corn V. “I was awful in Children,” she admits. “It was my first movie, and I hadn’t acted since being the fairy godmother in fourth grade. C5, as I call it, was a disaster.” Luckily, Eva Mendes learned from the experience, and she bounced back later that year with a memorable role in A Night at the Roxbury starring opposite Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan. “It was only my second job in the business,” she says, “and seeing them work and have fun made me decide that I could do it too.”
Eva Mendes proved just that in 2001 when she was cast alongside Denzel Washington in the gritty thriller Training Day. The critically acclaimed film became a box-office smash, and Eva cashed in on the added attention with roles in 2 Fast 2 Furious, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Stuck on You, and Hitch, for which she received an ALMA Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. Eva Mendes also broadened her footprint in the industry by joining fellow beauties Jessica Alba and Halle Berry as a spokesmodel for Revlon.
Eva Mendes has since solidified her reputation as one of Hollywood’s hottest young actresses with roles in the CGI-laden superhero flick Ghost Rider, as well as in the intense thriller We Own the Night, costarring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall.
[ biography courtesy of AskMen.com ]
