Ryan Gosling has one movie to thank for leading him toward fatherhood.

The actor told GQ in an interview published Wednesday that everything changed when he met Eva Mendes while filming Derek Cianfrance s 2012 crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines .

Its true that I wasnt thinking about kids before I met her, but after I met Eva, I realized that I just didnt want to have kids without her, Gosling said of Mendes, who is now his longtime partner.

And there were moments on The Place Beyond the Pines where we were pretending to be a family, and I didnt really want it to be pretend anymore, he continued. I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.

The couple, who may or may not be married , has two young children.

Gosling, a former child actor who rose to stardom in films including 2004s The Notebook and 2011s Drive, said he would never want to go back to his life before having kids. Im glad I didnt have control over my destiny in that way, because it was so much better than I ever had dreamed for myself, he told GQ.