Jeremy Renner says he doesn’t “have the energy” to play challenging characters after his accident

A year and a half ago, Marvel actor Jeremy Renner he had a serious accident with a snowplow, which almost cost him his life. It was great to see his miraculous and rapid recovery, culminating in his return to work on his Paramount+ series Mayor of Kingtownbut his return to acting was not without difficulties.

Renner admitted in a recent interview on the “Smartless” podcast that he doesn’t “have the energy” to take on more challenging roles as he continues his recovery from the near-fatal snowplow accident. He explained:

“I just don’t have the energy to do it. I don’t have fuel. I have so much fuel to put into this reality, into this body, into all these things. I can’t just pretend right now. Because it takes a long time to get here every day, so I can have positive thinking, so I can progress, so I can always continue to grow.

In January 2023, Renner was hospitalized for blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries after his Sno-Cat, a large snowplow weighing more than 14,000 pounds, hit him. He returned to the set of “Mayor of Kingstown” in January of this year to film the third season.

Renner shared with “Smartless” podcast hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes that he was “very terrified” of his return to acting.

“Why do I have to write, like, fucking fiction? I’m still trying to live in reality, I’m trying to live. So it was a tough line for me to cross. It was a big stretch. It was very, very challenging for me mentally to get over that hump. Sometimes I still struggle with it, like, I don’t take it very seriously. I’m in a character that I know how to play very well and I know the show very well, so it was easy for me to put myself back into it,” Renner said of his role as Mike McLusky in Mayor of Kingstown. “But if it had been a role very challenging, I couldn’t have accepted it. Not challenging in the sense that, because the show is challenging, but it is if I were to play Dahmer or something like that, something so far away from me.

Renner will star in Rian Johnson’s third mystery film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Mystery at Knives Outhis first film after the snowplow accident. The cast also includes Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Glenn Close, Josh O’Connor and Cailee Spaeny, with Daniel Craig reprising his role as private detective Benoit Blanc.

Character details have yet to be revealed for the “Knives Out” newcomers, though Renner’s likeness (in the form of a fictional brand of hot sauce) appeared in the 2022 sequel “Glass Onion.”

via: Variety