Unlike her contemporaries, we don’t hear much from gorgeous Newlywed Penelope Cruz about her diet, exercise regime or how she keeps her bod so svelte. There may be a very good reason for that. You Magazine quotes her as saying that you don’t have to be thin to be pretty and that she would “close down all those teenage magazines that encourage young girls to diet.” (Please note that while these quotes are excellent and they sound legitimate, I could not verify on You Magazine’s website that she granted them an interview to go along with their cover story. All they have on their site is a general article about her under-the-radar marriage to Javier Bardem.)

She tells Britain’s You magazine, “I would close down all those teenage magazines that encourage young
girls to diet. Who says that to be pretty you have to be thin?

“Some people look better thin and some don’t. There is almost a standard being created where only thin is acceptable. The influence of those magazines on girls as young as 13 is horrific.”

The 36-year-old actress also says she’s determined to grow old “gracefully” like movie icons Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn, and that she’ll never play the Hollywood game of knocking a few years off her birth date.

“I never want to lie about my age,” she says. “If I look around at the actresses I admire, they are all women who have not fought growing older, but embraced it — women like Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn … It’s a good thing to be old, because that means you haven’t died yet right? And when I do get older, I want to have the grace to be proud of it, not to lie about it or try to fight it.

“The people who love me, love me for who I am. They love me for a mixture of things that makes anyone love another person, and those things will still be there when I am 40, 60 or 80.”

[From Wonderwall]

Actually the teen magazines and general media influence girls much younger than 13. It’s sad and disheartening. I hope that if Penelope said this she’ll repeat it in more interviews. We hear way too much about celebrity recommended diets and exercises and not enough reflection about how that influences fans, particularly young ones.

In related news about Ms. Cruz-Bardem, Johnny Depp has confirmed in a teaser trailer shown at Comic Con ( here) that Penelope is set to star in fourth Pirates movie with him, On Stranger Tides, and called her character “vicious and vivacious.” I hope that the next Pirates film isn’t as bloated and hard to follow as the last one. At least the stars are highly watchable.