Go on, Eva, knock ‘em dead
Eva Mendes can’t stop hanging with the deceased.
The 32-year-old Cuban-American actress stars in the new superhero film “Ghost Rider” as the girlfriend of motorcycle stuntman Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), whose graveyard shift as Satan’s bounty hunter begins at sundown when his skull bursts into flames.
More recently, she was in Louisiana shooting her role as a widow in the upcoming thriller “Cleaner,” and spent her personal time haunting the South’s spookiest tombs.
“I’m somewhat obsessed with cemeteries,” Mendes says. “There’s just something so beautiful about them.”
Just three months ago, she got her first glimpse of a corpse at an uncle’s funeral.
“It was very surreal and had a very strange effect on me,” she says. “I touched it, and he was so cold. His soul was clearly gone. Seeing the dead body gave me faith that our energy moves on somewhere else.”
When Mendes finally meets her maker, she doesn’t envision herself six feet under.
“I probably want to be cremated and scattered in the water,” she says.
“I don’t know that I’ve found my special place yet, but if I were to die today, I’d say probably scattered off the shore of Cuba. I think that would be nice.”
In “Ghost Rider,” based on the Marvel comic book, Cage’s character makes a pact with the devil to save the life of his cancer-stricken father.
Mendes says she would be tempted to do the same for the opportunity to meet her grandparents, whose deaths preceded her birth.
“I would do anything to have my mother’s parents here – to just meet them,” she says. “I have so many unanswered questions.”
Mendes’ ancestors would no doubt be proud of her career path.
The Revlon Cosmetics spokeswoman and Maxim Hot 100 favorite got her start playing tough girls in horror sequels to “Children of the Corn” and “Urban Legends,” and street-fight films such as “Exit Wounds,” “2 Fast 2 Furious.”
But now she has an impressive lineup of films on the way. In the upcoming mob drama “We Own the Night,” she stars as Joaquin Phoenix‘s love interest alongside Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall.
“I gave 150 percent of myself for that role, which is scary, because if you don’t like me in that movie, then you don’t like me,” she says.
On the personal front, Mendes has been dating “an amazing person not in the public eye” and is committed to protecting his privacy – much as Cage has managed to do with his wife, Alice Kim, and their almost 17-month-old son, Kal-el.
As for that quirky name (taken from Superman’s Kryptonian birth name), Mendes gives her approval.
“Being unique is the reason I’m in this business,” she says.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to have a kid, but if I do, I’m definitely going to give him some really cool, strange name.”
The birthday bunch
Singer Smokey Robinson is 67. Singer Bobby Rogers (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles) is 67. Actor Jeff Daniels is 52. Singer Seal is 44. Actress Justine Bateman is 41. Actor Benicio Del Toro (“Traffic”) is 40. Singer-actress Haylie Duff is 22.