Ryan Gosling has taught his 20-month-old daughter Esmerelda how to stand up for herself in the playground.
The father of two joked he has shown his eldest daughter – who he has with partner Eva Mendes, 42 – how to inflict a reasonable amount of "vengeance" in a clever way, after another child kept scrubbing out her name during playtime.
Speaking on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’, he explained: "When I was a younger man I had a fantasy of getting into the graffiti world. I was living downtown, and I heard that if you tag over someone else’s name that that’s how you start a battle. So I did this for a few months and no one ever bothered to battle with me because I was so bad at it.
"Some kid has been erasing her name and writing their name over it. So now I’m in a proper tagging battle. And this kid has access to an unfair amount of chalk. I’m trying to explain to my little girl that this is [unacceptable]."
But Esmerelda – who is the older sister of the couple’s newborn daughter Amada Lee – is clearly more peace-loving than her famous dad.
He added: "She doesn’t care. She’s like, ‘Well let’s just chalk anywhere else,’ and I’m like, ‘No, no. They’re disrespecting your mother. Because, she gave you this name and they’re erasing it.’ "
Thankfully, the 35-year-old actor insisted he wouldn’t allow the little girl to go overboard.
He added: "The only way to really get back at them is to erase their name. And not disrespect their mother, but definitely put her on notice. Because I think she’s the chalk supplier. You’ve got to be careful when you’re trying to teach your kid what a reasonable amount of vengeance is."
Meanwhile, Ryan recently revealed his joy at welcoming a second daughter and joked that it cheered him up after working with Russell Crowe on new movie ‘The Nice Guys’.
He said: "It’s heaven. It’s like walking through a field of flowers every day. I live with angels."
"It’s a ray of sunshine in a dark time, honestly, because with Russell really, it’s sad. It’s sad that we’ve turned out this way."
Ryan Gosling teaching daughter ‘the importance of vengeance’
