Penelope Cruz: ‘Sexiest woman alive’ Photos

Spanish actress Penelope Cruz is Esquire US’s “sexiest woman alive” of 2014 – and has the photos to prove it!

The 40-year-old follows last year’s winner, American actress Scarlett Johansson, in earning the honour bestowed by editors of the US edition of Esquire magazine. Cruz, whose last film was director Ridley Scott’s 2013 thriller The Counselor, alongside husband Javier Bardem, 45, with whom she has two young children.

Cruz will star in the upcoming Spanish-language drama Ma Ma and is currently in production on the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy Grimsby. The Madrid-born actress, who won a supporting actress Oscar for her performance as an emotionally volatile artist in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, tells the magazine that she is no longer as attracted to dramatic roles as before.

“I had an attraction to drama,” says Cruz in the magazine’s upcoming issue. “Most of us have that, especially if you are an artist – you feel like you are tempted to explore the darkness. I could not be less interested now.”

Cruz rose to international prominence in 2001 with roles in Hollywood films Vanilla Sky and Blow. She also frequently collaborates with acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who has called Cruz his muse. Meanwhile, the actress tells Esquire that the Talk To Her director is her “biggest source of inspiration.”

Cruz has the distinction of joining American actress Mila Kunis, Barbados-born pop star Rihanna and South African actress Charlize Theron on the list of Esquire’s past sexiest women. – (Reuters)