Jeremy Renner Reflects on Acting Return After Snowplow Accident; Not yet ready for “difficult roles”

Jeremy Renner may have already stepped in front of the camera, but the Hawkeye star isn’t so sure about his recovery just yet. While appearing on the Smartless podcast on Monday, June 24, Renner, 53, who survived a near-fatal snowplow accident last year, admitted he didn’t have the energy to take on “difficult roles” as he continues to strain his health. First of all.

“I just don’t have the energy for it. I don’t have enough fuel,” the Kingstown Mayor actor confessed. “I have so much fuel to put into this reality, this body, all of this. I can’t play pretend now,” he added.

Jeremy Renner on how he pushed himself to get back in front of the camera

On January 1, 2023, the Hawkeye star was involved in a scary accident when he was crushed by a 14,300-pound weight. snowplow as he helped a family member extricate a stuck vehicle from an estimated three feet of snowfall the night before. The actor was left with 38 broken bones, a deformed lung and significant chest trauma due to the misfortune.

Now that Renner is in better shape, which is nothing short of a miracle, he revealed how the near-death experience helped him value the present more and how he came to accept “the ‘divine intervention’.

About stepping in front of the camera less than a year after the accident, Renner admitted he felt “very terrified” about doing it. “Because I have to make, like, f-ing fiction?” I always try to live in reality, I try to live. So that was a tough line for me to cross,” he noted on the aforementioned podcast. Renner added that it was really a big effort on his part to be back on the sets. He said it was very difficult for him to mentally overcome this obstacle.

Jeremy Renner on Returning to Film for The Mayor of Kingstown Season 3

Renner said he still struggled with it sometimes, but knowing the character well and knowing the series like the back of his hand made it easy for him to dive back into it. However, if it was a very challenging role, like Dahmar or something that is so far away from him, Renner said he wouldn’t have been able to accept it.

The Avengers actor opened up about his limited physical abilities following his accident to the Los Angeles Times in May. He said at the time that he was learning to walk again when he filmed the final season of the Disney+ series.

Renner remembers falling asleep during takes his first week back. “They say: ‘And action!’ And I was away,” he said. The actor said that he and the production team both realized that they had worked him too hard for too many hours and too many days in a row and that although he was willing to give his all on filming, what his body was capable of delivering was a totally different thing.

“They have to treat me like I’m a child actor,” Renner remarked. “The mayor of Kingstown now looks like a 14-year-old boy.”

The said show premiered on ParamountPlus on June 2.