Eva Mendes had always harbored dreams of becoming an actress. At her school in Los Angeles she took acting lessons and almost as soon as she had completed her education she was snapped up by an agent who could obviously sense that there was potential in her. Her first roles were in advertisements and in music videos; one notable performance coming in the Will Smith video for the song ‘Miami’. She then went on to play minor roles in films; her first coming in Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror, which went straight to video upon release.

Her first lead role came in the film Hitch, starring alongside Will Smith. Playing the role of Sara Melas she attempts to unmask Hitch, who is seen as a Love Doctor and expose him as something of a fraud. Hitch finds himself falling for her, but she is having none of it; she wants retribution for Hitch’s role in embarrassing one of her friends (a client had a one night stand with her). Her performance was one of the factors in the success of the film and soon led to more acting work for the aspiring actor. She played Roxanne Simpson in the film Ghost Rider and even managed a brief cameo appearance in the film Knocked up, although she was not credited for it. Currently, Mendes is working on a film called Southbound; details of her role are unknown but she is currently filming and the finished article is due to come out in late 2011.