Sexiest Stars of 2015... So Far

Lorraine Toussaint

Special acknowledgment has to go to Lorraine Toussaint. I should have put her on my list in 2014 because last year was truly her year. She had a small but significant role in the Oscar-winning film Selma, but she really exploded on television. She's been acting on TV since the late 80's. Her most prominent role was probably her leading character in Lifetime's Any Day Now. She appeared in four programs last year, including The Fosters, Being Mary Jane and Forever, but her best role was in Netflix's Orange is the New Black, which was probably Toussaint in her sexiest. If you don't believe me, check out Season 2, Episode 12 and fast forward to the end. Touissant is incredibly sexy and an even more incredible actress.

However, 2015 might just go down as the year of the transgendered person. A huge moment came with the TV interview of Bruce Jenner who was announced to be a transgendered woman newly named Caitlyn Jenner. This announcement sent a big splash all throughout the cultural landscape whose ripples will be felt for some time to come. In addition, we have the return of Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black. In daytime television, there was the storyline involving the transgendered character Maya Avant, played by Karla Mosley on CBS' The Bold and the Beautiful. Catfish: The TV Show also did an episode, "Jamey and Ari," involving a transgendered girl trying to come out to a potential boyfriend. There's also a series of films dealing with transgendered people. The first is Boy Meets Girl, which is a coming-of-age story set in Kentucky. Next up is Tangerine by Sean Baker about a working girl in Tinseltown. Lastly will be The Danish Girl, starring recent Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne about the very first known person to undergo sex-change surgery.

Aydian Dowling (left) recreates Adam Levine photo.

In light of this year being a cultural landmark for transgendered people, I also have to give special acknowledgment to Aydian Dowling. If you don't know, according to The Daily Beast, Aydian Dowling was born a female but transitioned into a male, a process he documented on YouTube, which made him an Internet star. He now has his own YouTube channel that's all about health and fitness. He lives in Oregon. He's married and he runs his own business, which provides clothing and other services for the transgendered community. What solidified his sex appeal was when he was put on the February 2015 cover of FTM magazine. He posed nude, imitating Grammy-winner Adam Levine when the music artist posed nude for the Feburary 2011 issue of Cosmopolitan UK. Dowling pulled a Nick Jonas-Mark Wahlberg move. Dowling also drew national attention in the spring when he was in contention to be put on the cover of Men's Health magazine, potentially making him the first transgendered man to do so.

Candice Patton posing for Maxim magazine

Dowling certainly would have made my list of sexiest stars, if he were an actor, which is what my list reinforces. Some fresh faces that almost made my list was Candice Patton who took some time but turned people's opinions around about her role on the CW series The Flash. If you have any interest in the daily British series Hollyoaks, you might have noticed Parry Glasspool, the hunky and adorable young man, playing one of several new teenagers on the scene. Bodybuilder-turned-actor Spencer Neville turned many heads on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives as well. I may change my mind about any of these people by year's end, but for now the following list are the people that truly made an impact for me.

Here it is, my list of the Sexiest Stars of 2015... So Far:

20. JAI COURTNEY - the Australian hunk appeared early in his career as a muscle-bound warrior in the TV series Spartacus: War of the Damned. He went on to play second fiddle to a lot of A-list actors. He was opposite Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher (2012). He was opposite Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard (2013). This year, he was opposite Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner. He was also in the latest Divergent movie, but he takes the lead in the blockbuster sequel Terminator: Genisys.

19. DAKOTA JOHNSON - she's the daughter of Oscar-nominee Melanie Griffith and the granddaughter of Tippi Hedren, the actress and fashion model known for some iconic, Hitchcock films. She's been in a few movies but Dakota's breakout is clearly her role as Anatasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey. The movie isn't that great despite making a half-billion worldwide, but hopefully it will allow her to do better things.

18. MATT MCGORRY - the 29-year-old used to be a bodybuilder and a writer for Men's Fitness magazine. Now, most people know him for his role as Corrections Officer John Bennett on the award-winning series Orange is the New Black. He now plays Asher Millstone on the hit show How to Get Away With Murder where he's the comic relief mostly. If you really want to have a laugh, check out his videos on CollegeHumor, including the Leaked Magic Mike 2 Audition and This Stripper is So Sexy It's Illegal.

17. AMY SCHUMER - she's a comedian who got her big break in 2007 on NBC's Last Comic Standing. She was a reoccurring panelist on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. She then was one of the comics in Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen in 2011 and then Comedy Central Roast of Roseanne Barr in 2012. She got her own series on Comedy Central in 2013 called Inside Amy Schumer, which earned her a Emmy nomination in writing last year. The best episode of which was when she did a spoof of 12 Angry Men. This year, she also wrote and stars in her first feature film Trainwreck directed by Judd Apatow.

16. RYAN PHILLIPPE - he first appeared in 1992 in the soap opera One Life to Live. He broke out by starring in hit films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Cruel Intentions (1999). He shed his teen bad boy image with his appearance in the Oscar-winning film Crash (2005). He returned to TV after over 15 years in FX's Damages. He directed his first feature last year in Catch Hell. This year, he starred in the ABC series Secrets and Lies, which was a remake of a weirdly sexy Australian show about a dead child.

15. LILY JAMES - this year she shared the ensemble award at the Screen Actors Guild for her role in Downton Abbey. However, the English actress went on to star in the hit, live-action remake of Cinderella (2015), which grossed $200 million in the United States and over a half-billion worldwide. There was some controversy surrounding the poster for Cinderella and accusations that it was digitally manipulated to make her waist smaller. It doesn't take away from her beauty either way.

14. JOHN KRASINSKI - he was the only good thing in Cameron Crowe's Aloha. He didn't speak a single word in that movie, but with just a great physical presence, he came across as funnier and more interesting than Bradley Cooper. In fact, in one scene, he makes Cooper look small and less sexy by doing nothing more than towering over him.

13. HAYLEY ATWELL - she first appeared in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream (2007). She was in the remake of Brideshead Revisited (2008) but won more acclaim for her role that same year in The Duchess. She went on to co-star in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), which has made her one of Marvel's go-to girls. She did a very intriguing episode of the British series Black Mirror, but this year, she got her own series Agent Carter.

12. ZACHARY QUINTO - some people might have first seen him in the third season of 24. I first remember him from the short-lived So Notorious in 2006. His breakout role was as Sylar in NBC's Heroes. His biggest role is playing Spock in the film reboot of Star Trek (2009). He won a Spirit Award for producing Margin Call in 2012. He received an Emmy nomination for American Horror Story in 2013. However, 2015 might just be Quinto's busiest year. He appeared in three TV shows, The Slap on NBC, Girls on HBO and Hannibal on NBC. He's also set to appear in three films. I Am Michael premiered at Sundance. Hitman: Agent 47 is set for a late summer release. Oliver Stone's Snowden is set to be released on Christmas. The Slap and I Am Michael in particular show how sexy an actor he can be.

11. KARLA MOSLEY - she started on Guiding Light, establishing herself as a soap star. She solidified her status when she joined the cast of The Bold and the Beautiful in 2013. She had done some TV before and a lot of theater. She can also sing, but her role on the CBS show has probably been the most monumental. Her character of Maya Avant recently was revealed to be transgender, which marks the first-time for such a character on daytime TV.

10. MIGUEL ÁNGEL SILVESTRE - he's the Spanish actor who co-stars in Netflix's Sense8, a TV series with a very good-looking cast but his character in particular is known for his sexiness and he delivers that in spades.

9. GINA RODRIGUEZ - the Puerto Rican actress from Chicago first impressed me in the independent film Filly Brown. Her absolute breakout role was this past year on the critically-acclaimed comedy, the CW's Jane the Virgin. The love for her actually started before her TV show premiered. In July 2014, she made quite the impression to the press. In an article on HitFix, reporter Geoff Bershire said, "When you can charm a room full of grouchy, sleep-deprived critics at the 2014 TCA summer press tour -- as Rodriguez did, with ease -- you can probably win over the world."

8. DANIEL FRANZESE - he's been in over a dozen films, starting with 2001's Bully. His most famous role was playing Damian, a gay high school kid in the hit movie Mean Girls in 2004. Yet, it wasn't until ten years later that he would himself come out as gay. He's done a couple of hilarious music videos, but he was notably cast in the second season of HBO's Looking in which earlier this year he had his first ever same-sex kiss and full-frontal nude scene, proving that any body type can be sexy and in fact be the sexiest character on a show with younger, more muscular men.

7. ALICIA VIKANDER - she's a 26-year-old, Swedish girl who's best known for doing period pieces like A Royal Affair and Anna Karenina. She even has two this year. One that's already out called Testament of Youth and one that's coming out later in the year called The Danish Girl, which has some early Oscar buzz. Yet, most may know her from the sci-fi flick she just did called Ex Machina. More are probably going to know her from the potential summer blockbuster from Guy Ritchie, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

6. CHRISTOPHER SEAN - he's Japanese-American. He's lovingly what some would call a soap stud. He's built like a Greek statue. His upper body and torso are chiseled perfection. His eyes are magnetic and his smile could charm the pants off anyone. He's currently the "it boy" on the NBC series Days of Our Lives, but he's also had an interesting re-occurring role on CBS' Hawaii Five-0.

5. ELIZABETH BANKS - she directed her first feature film Pitch Perfect 2 and it opened as a #1 film with $69 million and it has now gone on to gross nearly $300 million worldwide, whereas the first only grossed $115 million worldwide. She also gives an Oscar-worthy performance in the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, but in addition to all of that, she also did an episode of Modern Family this year. She'll reprise her cult film role in the Netflix adaptation Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and she also appears in Magic Mike XXL and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 coming out later this year.

4. CONSTANCE WU - she stars as Jessica Huang, the mother of famed chef Eddie Huang before he became a famed chef in the ABC series Fresh Off the Boat. She is not only beautiful but also a fantastic actress who owns the role. In fact, she's the only reason that I kept watching the series.

3. SCOTT EASTWOOD - he's the son of Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood and is a dead-ringer for his father when he was younger. If anything, his son is actually better-looking. He's popped up in his dad's most recent films. He had a lead in an indie film back in 2011, but his first lead in a major motion picture was this year in The Longest Ride, a Nicholas Sparks adaptation whose advertising was all about how hot this 29-year-old is, and who could disagree?

2. JUSSIE SMOLLETT - he started out as a child actor at the age 9 appearing in The Mighty Ducks (1992). He co-starred with his fellow siblings in the ABC sitcom On Our Own. He didn't really do anything of note for nearly 20 years until he resurfaced as the lead in the LGBT film The Skinny in which he also sang on the soundtrack. He did brief guest spots on two other TV shows before landing the role of Jamal in the monster hit series on FOX called Empire. The show broke several ratings records and is probably the most successful new series of 2015. When he performed on The View, Raven Symone proclaimed him to be "America's boyfriend."

1. TARAJI P. HENSON - she made a mark on the screen first in John Singleton's Baby Boy (2001). She did a lot of television, but she co-starred with Terrence Howard in the Oscar-winning Hustle & Flow (2005). She received the first Oscar nomination for herself in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). She did four seasons on CBS' Person of Interest. However, the TV role that has been more of a smash is her starring role on Empire as Cookie, the hot-as-fire matriarch who wants a piece of the company and a relationship with her sons.