This might be my favorite story of the day! In celebration of college… basketball? Right? Something involving sports and brackets and such, Esquire Magazine is doing a bracket-system battle royale for the “Sexiest Woman Alive”. One of the brackets is Megan Fox versus Dame Helen Mirren. You’d think with Esquire’s readership (men, dudes and douches) that Megan would be coming out ahead in a landslide, right? Not so much. It looks like some dudes with taste are actually voting online, and Helen Mirren is giving Megan a run for it. I just voted (at Esquire’s online poll here), and Mirren was sitting pretty at 61%. YES!

Esquire even put up this “interview” with Helen, and… I think I might be an idiot. Because I really can’t tell if this is a real interview or if someone at Esquire was making a funny. Can somebody help me out?

Near the halfway point of first-round play, top-seeded Megan Fox trails the streaking en fuego Helen Mirren, who’s clearly out to show that her automatic bid as the Big 60 conference champion was no fluke. The game is far from over for Fox. She made a last-minute push over the weekend (perhaps when voters went back to look at some of her old game footage, or just because she’s a fox) and has narrowed the gap to a slightly more manageable 39 percent to 61 percent. (She had been trailing by as much as forty percentage points.) Mirren, however, remains cautiously humble — and as poised as her championship team in 1980. We caught up with her briefly on her way to the locker room.

ESQUIRE: Were you surprised to be doing this well?
DAME HELEN MIRREN: I was surprised and flattered to be included at all. Personally I think Ms. Fox is one of the smartest, coolest, and sexiest creatures in the Western Hemisphere. I am gobsmacked.

ESQ: Are you upset that the selection committee only gave you a 16 seed?
HM: Well, I don’t quite know what that means, so I guess I don’t mind.

ESQ: Does veteran experience help in a tournament like this?
HM: Sometimes the veterans have a way of surprising you — think Brett Favre.

ESQ: If you win, do you have any words of consolation for your opponent?
HM: If I win — big if — I would say to Megan, “You actually still are one of the smartest, coolest, and sexiest creatures in the Western Hemisphere.”

ESQ: Do you think it’s your free-throw percentage that’s gotten you this far?
HM: It is more the fouls that I have gotten away with.

[From Esquire]

Is this fake? Did Helen really call Megan “one of the smartest, coolest, and sexiest creatures in the Western Hemisphere”? Is she did, that quote might be worse than all of Helen’s crap about women and rape. But I think it might be a fake interview. And I hate myself for not knowing.

Anyway, I’m thrilled that Mirren is beating out Megan in this or any battle. Helen’s got the better talent, the better attitude, the better boobs, and the better career. Plus, she’s just sexy as hell. Megan wishes. Vote early and vote often, people!