Actress Penelope Cruz relishes cleaning and cooking at home, insisting she finds her role as a housewife "the best thing in the world".

The big screen beauty is one of the most glamorous women in the world, but when she's at home, she likes nothing better than creating healthy meals and keeping her house in order.

She tells Britain's Hello! magazine, "I'm a housewife and it's beautiful, the best thing in the world. I know how to cook and it's important to me to make fresh food every day. I don't do crazy diets, just the good Mediterranean food that I love because it's important to eat well.

"I'm good at cleaning too. I learnt that when I made the film Volver. My character was always cleaning the house, so when I started preparing for the role I would go to my mother's house and to my sister's house, and they were like, 'I think she has a fever, because I don't know why else she has come to clean my house today.''