Penelope Cruz is Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive for 2014

Penelope Cruz, movie star and 40-year-old mother of two, is Esquire magazine’s sexiest woman alive for 2014.

“Cruz has no physical flaws, the bent noses and crooked teeth we would normally use as signifiers,” Chris Jones writes in an article that’s heavier on details from a night of bloody Madrid bullfighting than it is on details about the actress. “Her face contains no secrets, at least not about her.”

While her face contains no secrets, Cruz herself plays things close to the vest: She won’t talk about her marriage to Javier Bardem, about their two young children together, about the movie she made or the one she has coming up.

And about that controversial letter she and her husband signed over the summer regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Don’t even ask about that one -- she issued a statement explaining herself back in July, after all.

Which leaves, you know, the bullfighting. That said, the mysterious demeanor Cruz presents is pretty darned sexy, and her “sexiest” pictures are delightful.

Trivia: Of the 11 women on the list since Angelina Jolie kicked it off in 2004 -- Scarlett Johansson took the title twice, and really, why not -- only two, Rihanna and Minka Kelly, are not moms.

Esquire’s sexiest women, in order, have been Jolie, Jessica Biel, Johansson, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, Kate Beckinsale, Kelly, Rihanna, Mila Kunis, Johansson again, and now Cruz.

Another bit of trivia: Cruz didn’t even make Maxim’s 2014 Hot 100 list, which in May named Victoria’s Secret model Candice Swanepoel as its No. 1 hottie.

Different demographics?

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