In his first acting role since Succession, actor James Cromwell plays Ewan Roy’s worst nightmare—a greedy, fictional Starbucks executive who exploits eco-conscious customers by charging them more for vegan milk—in a new PETA video released in time for National Coffee Day on September 29.
Watch Cromwell’s PETA Video Slamming Starbucks:
| Director: Nim Shapira |
Producer: Noa Osheroff |
Writers: Ronen Harten, Nim Shapira, and PETA |
Director of photography and colorist: Eyal Bau Cohen |
| Editor: Nitay Dagan |
Gaffer: Daniele Sestito |
Sound design and mix: Daniel Bloch |
Title design: Adriano Reis |
| First assistant director: Zohar Zeev |
Script supervisor: Alon Shabshin |
Production services: Besties Make Movies |
Spliced with images of cruel industrialized milking, melting ice caps, and wildfires, the video features Cromwell in Starbucks’ signature green apron, explaining that the coffee chain is aware of the dairy industry’s contribution to “a giant burning hellscape.” He also explains why customers choose vegan milks to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
“It’s good that you pay … I mean, care,” he says, “because we also have other things to care about, like the $1.6 million cash sign-on bonus for our new CEO.”
“You just keep caring about saving the world, and we’ll keep caring about our savings account, because Starbucks cares about money. Heck, it’s right there in our name,” Cromwell says with a smirk, handing over a latte with a dollar symbol outlined in foam.
The socially conscious actor previously supported PETA’s campaign against the coffee giant by supergluing himself to a Starbucks counter in Midtown Manhattan to pressure the company to end its upcharge for vegan milks (which other chains offer at no extra cost).
Ditch Dairy!
In addition to driving the climate catastrophe, the dairy industry tears calves away from their mothers within a day of birth so that the milk meant to nourish them can be stolen and sold to humans. PETA’s investigations into dairy facilities have found workers electroshocking a cow in the face, hitting cows with poles and a cane, and abusing them in other ways. Once their bodies wear out from repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter.
PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and offers a free vegan starter kit to anyone who is ready to make kinder, healthier choices.
