From Carey Mulligan to Sterling K. Brown: 14 Oscar Nominees Likely to Skip the In-N-Out Tradition This Year

For many people, stopping by a fast-food joint after a big night out is a can’t-miss event. And for the stars of the Oscars, it’s no different. According to Jimmy Kimmel, who is set to host the Academy Awards once again on March 10, California favorite In-N-Out Burger is the place to go after the ceremony has wrapped. “Nothing against McDonald’s,” he recently told People. “But on award show night, it’s In-N-Out.”

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But for Oscar attendees who may not be interested in eating meat or dairy, this tradition is a little problematic. In-N-Out Burger is yet to join the likes of Burger King or White Castle by adding a plant-based patty to the menu, and all of its burgers are made with beef and American cheese.

For Hollywood stars who are concerned about the environment, beef is unlikely to be the go-to choice. After all, the industry is the leading driver of deforestation on the planet, and responsible for rapidly driving up greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, for every kilogram of beef produced, research suggests 60 kilograms of emissions are generated.

Below, we’ve listed 14 Oscar nominees who we think are likely to skip the In-In-Out Burger tradition. But don’t worry, they can all still get their late-night burger fix. We suggest they make like Joaquin Phoenix and head to Monty’s Good Burger for a big juicy Impossible patty instead.

Why these 14 Oscar nominees are likely to skip the In-N-Out burger tradition

Gage Skidmore

1 Robert Downey Jr.

Oppenheimer star Robert Downey Jr. is up for Best Supporting Actor at this year’s Academy Awards. But if he wins, he’s unlikely to be heading to In-N-Out, unless he’s happy to settle for just fries. And that’s because the actor follows a pescatarian diet.

Downey Jr. is passionate about the impact that our food choices can have on the planet. He has invested in multiple plant-based food companies via his venture capital firm, FootPrint Coalition, and has even recently co-authored a book—called Cool Food: Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bit at a Time—dedicated to helping more people understand the power of what’s on their plates.

Mark Ruffalo/Instagram

2 Mark Ruffalo

Nominated in the same category as Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo is hoping to take home the win for his performance in Poor Things. But like his fellow nominee, it’s pretty unlikely he’ll be scoffing down a beef burger afterward, as the actor is also a prominent environmental activist. Ruffalo is particularly concerned with the energy industry and campaigning against fracking, but he has spoken about eating plant-based food before.

Talking about his time living with Phoenix while they shot Reservation Road, he told Sean Evans on Hot Ones recently: “He’s a great cook, and he turned me on to vegan cuisine and so he would cook all the time and he was a great roommate.”

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3 Bradley Cooper

We can’t say for certain if Bradley Cooper—nominated for Best Actor for his role in Maestro—would skip In-N-Out, as he hasn’t mentioned anything about being vegan or eating vegan food before, but he has shown significant concern for the state of the planet. In 2018, he was one of 200 actors who signed an open letter to world leaders, calling for immediate action on the climate crisis.

“It is time to get serious,” the letter, which was published in the French newspaper Le Monde, read. “The sixth mass extinction is taking place at unprecedented speed. But it is not too late to avert the worst.”

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4 Carey Mulligan 

Also nominated for Maestro, Carey Mulligan’s hat is in the ring for Best Actress at this year’s ceremony. But if she does take home the iconic gold statue, we don’t think she’ll be heading to In-N-Out Burger.

“I’m vegan and I love bread, but recently, I started making dinner a breadless meal,” she said in 2015. “I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and I’ll make a sandwich on Ezekiel bread for lunch, but in the evening I’ll have protein and vegetables and no bread. When I wake up, my belly is flat!”

Mulligan hasn’t spoken about her diet recently, but she has expressed concern for environmental issues. Like Cooper, in 2020, she also added her name to a letter calling for more climate action from world leaders. The open letter was for the United Nation’s Global Goals campaign, which urged more action on poverty, inequality, and climate change. 

Lily Gladstone/Instagram

5 Lily Gladstone

In 2021, after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its sixth climate report, Indigenous actor Lily Gladstone—nominated at this year’s Oscars for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon—reposted a poignant post from the NDN Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to “building Indigenous power,” to her Instagram account.

Under an image with the text “In this moment, we must dream the Indigenous dream” the caption read: “Given what is in this report and what we are seeing in our communities, this trend of ignoring climate science and data and ignoring Indigenous climate leadership by our elected leaders must end across the globe.”

Gladstone has spoken of her affinity for the natural world on many occasions. She’s a self-professed “bee nerd,” and longs to live in a treehouse in her parents’ backyard. For all of these reasons, we just can’t see In-N-Out Burger being her destination of choice post-Academy Awards.

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6 Emma Stone

In 2020, Poor Things star Emma Stone—who is nominated in the same category as Gladstone and Mulligan—married comedian and writer Dave McCary in a wedding that, according to Vogue Australia, was likely vegan-friendly.

At the time, the publication wrote: “Stone is a proud vegan, and McCary a vegetarian, so the couple may opt for an eco-friendly wedding and keep environmentalism in mind. The couple reportedly holiday at eco-resorts, travel by bicycle, and grow their own food, and we can expect this attitude to extend to their special day.”

Stone herself hasn’t spoken about her diet, but she is certainly sustainability-focused. In 2018, she took part in the Green Carpet Challenge. Founded by the global agency Eco Age, the campaign urged stars to champion sustainable fashion on the red carpet. For that reason, if she takes the win, we think she’s more likely to head to Monty’s over In-N-Out to celebrate.

Danielle Brooks/Instagram

7 Danielle Brooks

Danielle Brooks—who is nominated for her role in The Color Purple at this year Oscar’s—is also likely to be in pursuit of meat-free food after the Academy Awards, given that she is vegan (well, as far as we know, anyway). In 2017, Brooks announced that she had started a “new vegan life” on X (which was then known as Twitter). “Day 10 of this new vegan life. I made vegan Pad Thai. Feeling pretty solid about this thang!” she wrote at the time.

More recently, she has spoken about following the lead of singer Lizzo (who is also a vegan) in terms of choosing to follow a detox. “Just like Lizzo, and so many other ‘fat’ girls we should be allowed to make healthy choices publicly without being made to feel like frauds for trying to be healthy,” she wrote on Instagram in 2020. “I feel it’s important to share the journey, as a reminder that we are not alone, we ain’t always got it together, and that we are ALL works in progress.”

America Ferrera/Instagram

8 America Ferrera

America Ferrera gave one of the most talked about speeches of 2023 in Barbie, helping to bag her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards. She’s just as passionate about women’s activism in real life, and she has also spoken out about climate action in the past, too.

“Climate change affects the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, our economy, our political affairs, conflict, war. That can all be exacerbated by climate change, and it’s slowly getting scarier and more urgent,” she told Refinery29 in 2016. More recently, in 2020, she teamed up with Jane Fonda to narrate the audiobook All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, which highlights the vital environmental work that women are doing around the world.

Ferrera hasn’t spoken about her diet much, but multiple reports indicate that she’s a fan of whole foods and vegetables. Could she be an In-N-Out Burger fan? We’re not so sure.

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9 Jodie Foster

Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster is hoping for a third win after being nominated for her role in Nyad. It’s hard to say if she’s partial to a fast-food beef burger, as she hasn’t spoken openly about her diet habits and preferences, but we think it’s unlikely she’ll be heading to In-N-Out after the Academy Awards this year. The actor has given us clues that she’s sustainability-minded—in 2018, she announced she would be directing and starring in a remake of the Icelandic eco–thriller, Women at War.

Sterling K. Brown/Instagram

10 Sterling K. Brown

Sterling K. Brown is up for his first Academy Award this year, nominated for his work on American Fiction. If he wins, he might be celebrating with a banquet of plant-based food. In 2018, his New Year’s Resolution was to go vegan. “Gotta give up this meat,” he told CNN at the time. Brown hasn’t spoken much about his diet since then, but he has shown his passion for environmental issues by co-hosting the Prince of Wale’s Earthshot Prize ceremony in 2023.

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11 Robert De Niro

If Robert De Niro takes home the Oscar for his role in Killers of the Flower Moon, it’ll be the third Academy Award win of his career, but we don’t think he’ll be off to In-N-Out to show it off. The actor has expressed concern over climate change in the past, and in 2020, he co-signed a letter written by actor Juliette Binoche and French physicist Aurélien Barrau, calling for “No to a Return to Normal.”

“The pursuit of consumerism and an obsession with productivity has led us to deny the value of life itself: that of plants, that of animals, and that of a great number of human beings. Pollution, climate change, and the destruction of our remaining natural zones have brought the world to a breaking point,” the letter read.

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12 Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese has been nominated 10 times for Best Director at the Oscars. He’s won one of those times in 2007, but if he adds to that this year (he’s also nominated for Killers of the Flower Moon) we don’t see him heading off for a beef burger to celebrate his victory.

Scorsese evidently has a close working relationship with actor, environmentalist, and plant-based investor, Leonardo DiCaprio, but it goes further than Killers of the Flower Moon. The director also produced the climate documentary Before the Flood, which sees DiCaprio meet with climate activists and experts all over the world.

If he wins, he’ll likely want to celebrate with DiCaprio, and we bet they’ll be heading straight for sustainable vegan food instead of In-N-Out.

Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Support & Feed

13 & 14 Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell

And finally, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell are hoping to take home the Oscar for Best Original Song (the brother-and-sister duo wrote Barbie’s What Was I Made For?), and it’s safe to say that, if that happens, neither will be celebrating with In-N-Out Burgers. Both are big champions of the plant-based lifestyle (and so is their mom, Support + Feed founder Maggie Baird), so it’s far more likely that they’ll be heading to one of Los Angeles’ best vegan fast-food joints instead.