Zachary Quinto and Claire Danes Read From Classic Books in Audible’s Politically Charged Ads

During Sunday’s Academy Awards telecast, the Star Trek actor appeared in a stark black-and-white commercial for Amazon’s Audible audio-book service, reading a passage from George Orwell’s 1984.

“If he were allowed contact with foreigners, he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself, and that most of what he had been told about them is lies,” Quinto reads. “The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred and self-righteousness on which his morale depends, might evaporate.”

You know, for someone who famously derided advertising as “the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket,” Orwell was a pretty fair copywriter.

1984’s