James Cromwell has revealed he went vegan on the second day of shooting the 1995 children’s film Babe – and never went back.
The 85-year-old Succession star, who played farmer Arthur Hoggett in the acclaimed movie, said in a new interview that he switched to a plant-based diet after just two days of filming alongside the cast of farm animals.
“On the second day of filming, I broke for lunch before everybody else. All the animals I’d worked with that morning were on the table, cut up, fricasseed, roasted and seared,” he told The Guardian. “That was when I decided to become a vegan.”
The film follows the titular piglet, Babe, who is won by Farmer Hoggett at a county fair. Babe is taken to the Hoggett farm, where he befriends the other farm animals and defies expectations when he learns how to herd sheep.
Cromwell described the months of work that went into training the ducks, sheep, border collies, horses and other farm animals featured in the film, especially for the final scene that sees Babe triumphantly herd a flock of sheep at a sheepdog competition.
He explained that the trainer spent five months trying to get the sheep to “walk three abreast in rows and follow the pig around the circuit”.
“She was working with them right until we shot. I said, ‘Away to me pig’ and those sheep moved through the circuit without a pause. When the gate closed behind them, the crowd – 200 extras we’d gathered from the local town – went berserk.”
According to Cromwell, viewers had similar responses to himself after watching the beloved movie, with some fans also opting for vegetarian and vegan diets.
He said: “The only negative thing I ever heard about Babe was from a woman who said it ruined her relationship with her daughter. They used to enjoy Big Macs together and now her daughter wouldn’t eat animals. I thought: ‘If that’s what you based your relationship on, it sucks anyway!’”
The actor is a longtime advocate for the animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta). In 2023, he helped save a piglet (which he named Babe) from slaughter.
“Having had the privilege of witnessing and experiencing pigs' intelligence and inquisitive personalities while filming the movie Babe changed my life and my way of eating, and so I jumped at the chance to save this real-life Babe,” Cromwell said in a statement from Peta at the time.
Cromwell’s activism has seen him involved in many high-profile protests over the mistreatment of animals. In 2022, he superglued his hand to a Starbucks counter in protest of the coffee chain charging more for vegan milks than regular milks.
At the time, Cromwell alleged that Starbucks “discriminated against those who can’t have dairy” by making customers “pay more” for alternatives such as almond or oat milk. He was wearing a T-shirt that bore the words “Free the Animals”.
In 2023, the actor said he had “lost track” of the number of times he’s been arrested as a result of his involvement in protests.
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