Ryan Gosling Says Eva Mendes and Daughters Gave Him ‘Tips\’ Ahead of ‘I’m Just Ken’ Performance (Exclusive)

Ryan Gosling is revealing more about his performance of “I’m Just Ken\” at the 2024 Oscars.

Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at the world premiere of The Fall Guy at SXSW in Austin on Tuesday, Gosling, 43, opened up about how he got some crucial advice from his long-term partner Eva Mendes and their daughters Esmeralda Amada, 9, and Amada Lee, 7, ahead of the show.

\”It was great,\” the Barbie star tells PEOPLE. \”It was so fun because they came to the dress rehearsal the day before and so they were in the front row. \”

\”They gave me some tips and some notes, all great notes,\” he continues. \”They are such a huge part of this for me…it was my girl\’s interest in Barbie and disinterest in Ken that got me into this in the first place. It was beautiful to have them there at the end.\”

Gosling stole the show at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday with his live performance of “I’m Just Ken” which lost out to the Billie Eilish song “What Was I Made For?” for the award of Best Original Song.

The actor was accompanied by song co-writer Mark Ronson, Wolfgang Van Halen, Slash and a group of men dressed in suits and cowboy hats for the performance — including his fellow \’Kens\’ Scott Evans, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Ncuti Gatwa.

Reacting to a video of Martin Scorsese vibing to the performance inside the Dolby Theatre on Sunday, Mendes, 50, later wrote that the Instagram re-post by Francesca Scorsese’s was “the best video ever.”

Fresh off his Supporting Actor nomination (bringing his total with the Academy to three), Gosling leads the action-comedy The Fall Guy as Colt Seavers.

Appearing at The Fall Guy world premiere alongside co-star Emily Blunt, the actor also opened up about the craziest stunt he\’s ever had to do while filming.

\”They dropped me twelve stories off of a building and I have a fear of heights,\” he tells PEOPLE. \”I mean I did a few more things and I would have been happy to say I did none of my own stunts in this movie but it was important that I do a few, especially the actor that starts the film.

\”It helped me to understand exactly on some small level what they do every day,\” he adds.

Stunts take center stage in Universal Pictures’ new movie version of The Fall Guy, which revolves around an explosive sci-fi-Western. Blunt, 41, plays the movie-in-a-movie’s director, forced to hire Gosling’s character to oversee its wild stunt sequences.

Costarring is Winston Duke as a stunt coordinator, Hannah Waddingham as a producer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a cocky leading man — who mysteriously disappears — and Stephanie Hsu as his beleaguered assistant.