People SpecialThe Sexiest Men Alive

JAVIER BARDEM

After seeing that recent shot of him in a leg-locking horizontal clutch with Penélope Cruz on a beach in the Maldives, who could deny the Spaniard is a sex symbol? Well, he could. "It just makes me laugh," says Bardem, 38, who's starring in Love in the Time of Cholera and No Country for Old Men. "I see a guy who looks like he's been beaten with a baseball bat." At least Bardem acknowledges that he has a certain seductive intensity. "Once you start to get older, you have to focus and be passionate about life day after day."

Next Photo