Eva Mendes makes one for her mom
BY CINDY PEARLMAN May 4, 2012 2:47PM
Eva Mendes stars in "Girl in Progress," opening May 11. | Pascal Le Segretain~Getty Images
Updated: June 7, 2012 8:12AM
LOS ANGELES — Eva Mendes, at age 38, is still working on It.
That would be that elusive It that defines a life.
“It doesn’t matter what age you are. Everyone is still a work in progress. How boring to get there and have it all figured out,” she says, and then let’s out a loud, “Ewwwwww.”
In “Girl in Progress,” opening Friday, Mendes plays a single mom whose life is a combination of her teen daughter, work, bills and an affair with a married doctor.
“This is a mom who is a disaster,” she says. “She has a lot of bad and good stuff going on. I thought that it would be fun to play, but also more truthful than a mom who was absolutely perfect.”
Mendes did the movie as a tribute to her own mother.
“I’m such a sucker for mother-daughter stories because I’m so close to my mom,” she says. “Growing up, we would sit there and watch ‘Terms of Endearment.’ I’d watch with my mom and we’d cry together.”
A Cuban-American who was born in Miami, Mendes says she was encouraged to excel in all areas. “Anytime I’d take a test or write something or get an A, it was definitely going up on the fridge. She was that mom. She was always showing complete strangers my report card — until I got to be a teenager and she didn’t want to show that report card. It didn’t go on the fridge. Funny how that happened at about 15.”
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