Penelope Cruz Is ‘Esquire’s’ Sexiest Woman Alive — But She Hasn’t Got Much To Say

Esquire magazine has released the cover of their upcoming November issue featuring Penelope Cruz. According to the publication, Penelope Cruz is this year’s “Sexiest Woman Alive.”

Penelope Cruz joins a list of sexy past winners that include Angelina Jolie, Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson (who won twice), Rihanna, Mila Kunis, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, and Kate Beckinsale. At 40-years-old, Cruz is the second oldest woman to ever win the 11-year-old award (Berry was 42 when she won in 2008).

In an interview done in Madrid, Penelope tells Esquire that she was very interested in drama in her teens and twenties, so much so that she devoted her life to acting after seeing Pedro Almodóvar’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

Cruz set forth on a career that would gain her critical and public acclaim with performances in such films as Blow, Vanilla Sky, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and The Counselor.

However, as she’s gotten older, she says her interest in drama has waned.

“I’ve made it hard for me sometimes, especially in my teens and twenties. I had an attraction to drama. 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. For me, the most attractive, charming, cool, fun, interesting thing—how could I call it? A plan.”

In the interview, Penelope Cruz refused to discuss her relationship with her husband and fellow actor, Javier Bardem, or their children. “That is for us,” she said. For that matter, Cruz didn’t want to discuss her latest film, the Spanish-language Ma-Ma, or her next film she’s making with Sacha Baron Cohen, called Grimsby.

One other thing she absolutely did not want to talk about — so much so that it was a condition of the interview that it not be brought up — was the letter she and her husband infamously signed last summer. The letter condemned Israel for its war with Palestine. However, it was not seen at large so much as the “can’t we all get along,” piece that it may have intended to be. Instead, it was much more viewed as an attack on Israel’s policies in the Middle East and garnered both Penelope and her husband backlash from not only Hollywood but Washington as well.

On the whole, the interview ends with little being learned about the current “Sexiest Woman Alive.” The Esquire interviewer even says as much.

You can read all about Penelope Cruz, the “Sexiest Woman Alive,” in Esquire.

[Images via bdclifeinstyle, celebzz, esquire]