He became the poster child for feminist memes without even meaning to, but now, Ryan Gosling is admitting that the feminist cause is more important to him than ever because of his daughter Esmeralda.  

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In an interview with The Daily Telegraph's Sunday Style, the Lost River director talked about how he unwittingly became the focus of the feminist movement with blogs and memes featuring his face growing abundantly over the years, but admitted that it has helped him gravitate towards the projects he's worked on throughout his career. 

"There are certainly worse things you can be a part of, " he said. "I mean, look, I have very strong female characters in my life. I grew up with strong women and the amount of them grows exponentially as time goes on, in my world. And that's my reality. So, I just tend to gravitate towards stories with strong female characters. It's not a conscious thing." 

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He also admitted that the presence of stronger women both in his personal life and out there in the public eye is something he loves--and he thinks it's more important to him now that these women exist because of his eight-month-old daughter with girlfriend Eva Mendes. 

"I didn't make those [memes], you know? It's not by design," he said. "But I do have a little girl now and it's important to me. These things are becoming...not more important to me, but more important in general, I think. There are lots of great women out there who I really admire: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, the Broad City girls [Abbi Abrams and Ilana Wexler], Lena Dunham and Kathryn Bigelow. I don't know, it just seems like it's happening."

Tags: ryan gosling Eva Mendes