Eva Mendes has gushed her partner Ryan Gosling is the “greatest” actor she’s ever starred alongside.

The mum-of-two, who has daughters Esmeralda Amada, eight, and Amada Lee, seven, with the ‘Barbie’ actor, 42, featured as his love interested in the 2012 thriller ‘The Place Among the Pines’, and even though she rarely talks about their relationship publicly has taken to Instagram to heap praise on him for the way he does his job.

She said alongside stills from ‘Pines’: “Mi Hombre. Mi Vida… to say he’s the greatest actor I’ve ever worked with is an understatement.”

Eva also included a quote from ‘Barbie; director Greta Gerwig’s recent Rolling Stone interview in which she praised Ryan.

Greta, 39, described him as “some combination of Marlon Brando meets Gene Wilder meets John Barrymore meets John Travolta”.

Eva thanked the filmmaker for her kind words, saying: “Gracias to the brilliant and beautiful Greta Gerwig @rollingstone.”

Ryan stars as Ken in the ‘Barbie’, which is due out on 21 July, and last month Eva said online about the film: “So. F. Funny. So. F. Good. So F excited for you to see this. #Thatsmyken.”

Ryan recently told GQ he knew he wanted to settle down with the actress when they played at being a family in ‘Pines’, which saw their characters share a baby.

He added: “I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her, but after I met Eva, I realised that I just didn’t want to have kids without her.

“And there were moments on ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ where we were pretending to be a family, and I didn’t really want it to be pretend anymore.

“I realised that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.”

Eva, who has stepped out of the acting world since becoming a mum, seems to have confirmed she and Ryan secretly married when she last year called him her husband while she plugged the Ronald McDonald House charity on ‘Today Australia’.

She said when asked how she was enjoying Oz: “I’m loving it here. Everybody is amazing, everybody is welcoming us, it’s been so beautiful.

“My husband Ryan is here… and our children are here, we’re having the best time.”