Eva Mendes recalls first meeting with Ryan Gosling

Eva Mendes still remembers the details of her first time meeting and working with longtime partner Ryan Gosling.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” Mendes recalled during an interview on The Today show Tuesday, getting candid about her first interaction with the Oscar-nominated actor during the filming of their 2012 movie The Place Beyond the Pines.

“The way he works, his commitment to his craft, how he wants to make everything as best as it can be — and that means making his co-stars as best as they can be.”

She further explained she stopped working, saying, “Unfortunately — or fortunately — there’s only one Ryan, so I pretty much stopped acting after that.”

Ever since then, the couple has kept their relationship private, only showing their support for each other in the most subtle ways, just like Mendes’ heart-warming Instagram post after Gosling’s epic I’m Just Ken Oscars performance.

Mendes also called the decision to take a step back from acting after a decade-long career to focus on parenting their two daughters, Esmeralda Amada, 9, and Amada Lee, 7, not difficult at all.

“It was like a no-brainer. I’m so lucky, and I was like, if I could have this time with my children — and I still work, I just didn’t act, because acting takes you on location,” she said.

“It takes you away. It was almost just like a non-verbal agreement that it was like, ‘OK, he’s [Gosling] going to work and I’m going to work. I’m just going to work here.'”