Succession's James Cromwell Superglued Hand to Starbucks Counter in Protest
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This week, life (sort of) imitated art, as James Cromwell channelled his anti-capitalist Succession character, Ewan Roy, in a protest at a Starbucks in midtown Manhattan. Wearing a t-shirt that read "free the animals," Cromwell superglued his hand to the Starbucks counter, protesting the coffee chain's surcharge for plant-based milk.
"When will you stop raking in huge profits while customers, animals and the environment suffer?" Cromwell asked. (You can watch Cromwell's 30-minute protest on PETA's Facebook.) He later used a knife to help un-glue his hand; he was not arrested.
"We respect our customers' rights to respectfully voice their opinions so long as it does not disrupt our store operations," a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement.
"My friends at PETA and I are calling on Starbucks to stop punishing kind and environmentally conscious customers for choosing plant milks," Cromwell said in a press release from PETA. "We all have a stake in the life-and-death matter of the climate catastrophe, and Starbucks should do its part by ending its vegan upcharge."
Cromwell has been involved with PETA since he went vegan while playing Farmer Hoggett in the 1995 film Babe—a role for which he won an Oscar.
This is not Cromwell's first foray into activism. While he mainly focuses on animal rights, he's also protested against fossil fuel companies.
He's been arrested multiple times: in February 2013 during a protest in Madison, Wisconsin against cruelty to animals, and arrested, in December 2015 during a protest against the construction of a natural gas power station in upstate New York, in June 2016 for a protest against underground gas storage near Seneca Lake, in 2017 in a protest against Sea World's treatment of orca whales, and in October 2019 in an animal rights protest in Texas.
He served three days in jail for his protests in Wawayanda, New York. "Going to jail is a statement about how we have to lift our game. It’s no more good enough just to picket and to petition, because nobody is listening. The way people get the message out is you do an act of civil disobedience," Cromwell told Democracy Now in 2017. “We have to change our relationship both to the planet and to the people who live on this planet, including the people who are opposing us.”
His activism also extends beyond environmental issues. He was involved in the Vietnam anti-war movement in the 1960s, and in the early 2000s, he could be found at anti-Iraq war protests.
Amidst his protesting, Cromwell has still found time to star in numerous film and television projects. He's currently portraying Julia Child's father John McWilliams in the HBO Max show Julia, and will likely make an appearance as Ewan Roy in Succession season four. Season four is set to start filming soon—no premiere date has been announced.
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