Eva Mendes gets birthday surprise from Ryan Gosling — on national TV

Ryan Gosling (right) brought Eva Mendes (left) onstage during a recording of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Thursday, March 5. (Todd Owyoung/NBC/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling made their first official appearance together in public in more than a decade on Thursday night, when the “Barbie” star surprised his partner for her 52nd birthday.

Gosling had Mendes brought onstage during the filming of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” so that the audience could sing “Happy Birthday,” led by a high school marching band.

Gosling was on the show to promote his new film, “Project Hail Mary,” in which he plays a middle school teacher who wakes up on a spaceship and with no memory. In honor of the film’s theme, the actor had filled the audience with school teachers.

Mendes had “no idea” this was going to happen, Fallon said. Looking nonplussed as she came onto the stage, she gave an impromptu speech to the audience of teachers, having to lean into the host’s microphone.

“We owe so much to you guys,” she said, “and you’re so underpaid!” — prompting laughter from the audience.

Earlier, Gosling revealed that Mendes “loves teachers” and even displays her Hall Monitor sash in their home.

Fallon brought out New Jersey’s North Bergen High School marching band, who carried a flag declaring “Happy Birthday, Eva!”

Mendes and Gosling reportedly met while filming the thriller “The Place Beyond the Pines” in 2011, and they now have two daughters. Despite their status as Hollywood A-listers, the couple have mostly kept their relationship and family life out of the public eye.

At the 2024 Oscars, before his performance of the song “I’m Just Ken” from Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” Gosling walked the red carpet with his mom, stepdad and sister. Mendes stayed backstage.

Earlier in the show, Gosling told Fallon about the influence of one of his teachers, who, he said, “really flipped things around for me.” She ran a reading competition for the students, and Gosling got second place.

“I’ve never read that many books in my life,” he said.

He also revealed that, when the teacher left the school, Gosling attempted to reenact the famous “O Captain! My Captain!” scene from the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society.”

“I stood on my desk and I was crying, and I said ‘O Captain! My Captain!’” he recounted, “and no one got the reference. I don’t even think she got the reference.”

At the end of the show, Fallon revealed that the entire audience would be going to a screening of “Project Hail Mary.”

By Sam Peters, CNN