Alicia Silverstone Brings Vegan Baking to the Big Screen in ‘Reptile’

Vegan actress Alicia Silverstone’s new film, Reptile, may be a dark crime thriller, but it also includes a nod to veganism that viewers won’t miss. 

In one scene, Silverstone—who plays a leading role as Judy Nichols, the wife of police detective Tom Nichols, played by Benicio Del Toro—brings a vegan birthday cake to the birthday party of Nichol’s colleague, Robert Allen. Everyone is gathered around the kitchen table singing “Happy Birthday” and blowing out the candles on the cake. 

Daniel McFadden/Netflix

“Judy made this cake, everyone, and it is all vegan,” Allen’s wife says. Her husband then says, “No animals were harmed in the making of this cake.”

Alicia Silverstone’s vegan baking

The nod to vegan baking was likely inspired by Silverstone’s personal mission to promote a vegan and sustainable lifestyle. Silverstone promotes the lifestyle in many ways, including by sharing articles and recipes on her website, The Kind Life. She also has an accompanying podcast, a YouTube channel, and a cookbook, called The Kind Diet. 

The actress, author, and activist has been vegan since 1998—a move that also comes with environmental benefits, too. 

In fact, Silverstone has been nurturing her sustainable home garden for the last 27 years, and it is now thriving so much that she can indulge in the simple pleasure of plucking massive avocados from a fruit-laden tree, filling her breakfast bowl with berries from her own backyard, sharing persimmons with the squirrels, and harvesting lettuce and herbs for a salad. 

Alicia Silverstone

As part of her commitment to sustainability, Silverstone added solar panels to the roof, harnessing the California sunshine to power the household. Plus, a clever gray water system ensures that every drop of water counts, including wastewater from sinks and showers that is collected and redirected to provide passive irrigation for her flourishing fruit trees.

“When I take a bath or a shower or I wash my hands in the sink upstairs in my bathroom, all that water feeds plants,” Silverstone explains on her YouTube channel. “And it saves 40,000 gallons of water using gray water, which is a really good investment for the Earth.”

Silverstone has also passed on her knowledge about her sustainable plant-based lifestyle to her son, Bear Blu Jarecki, who has been vegan since birth.

Alicia Silverstone’s vegan activism

While she leads by example when it comes to sustainable living, Silverstone also advocates for animals. For Mother’s Day last year, the actress partnered with non-profit organization Farm Sanctuary to raise awareness about the cruelty inherent in factory farms—where mothers and their children are routinely separated.

“Mother’s Day can be bittersweet when we think of the other species who just want to love their babies and are robbed of the opportunity to exercise their maternal instinct because of human greed and exploitation in factory farming,” Silverstone wrote in a letter posted to the animal sanctuary’s website.

Farm Sanctuary

As part of the campaign, Silverstone also urged readers to join her in “adopting” Hayes, a calf who was born into the dairy industry and lost his mother at a young age; goat Olive and her daughter Maggie, who was born shortly after Olive’s arrival at Farm Sanctuary; and sheep Amari and her daughters Laura and Bailey, born just 10 days after Amari was rescued from slaughter. 

In 2021, Silverstone also participated in a campaign demanding Starbucks to drop its vegan milk surcharge. In a letter the actress posted to her website, Silverstone explained that she, along with other activists such as Alan Cumming, has been asking Starbucks to drop its vegan milk surcharge for many years as the extra charge makes more environmentally and animal-friendly options less accessible to the public. 

“These charges may seem small, but they penalize customers who are making humane and environmentally friendly choices,” Silverstone wrote. “It also penalizes people for issues they can’t control, like being lactose intolerant—which affects 65 percent of the population, predominantly people of color.”

PETA

In 2020, Silverstone and her then eight-year-old son joined forces with People for the Ethical Treat of Animals (PETA) to recreate Paul and Linda McCartney’s iconic 30-year-old PETA advertisement. The ad bears a striking resemblance to the original, but instead of sending the “Go Veggie” message shown on Linda McCartney’s T-shirt, Silverstone wears an updated “Go Vegan” slogan.