Jeremy Renner Admits He Lacks Energy for ‘Challenging’ Roles Post Snow Plow Accident
In a recent interview on the “SmartLess” podcast, Jeremy Renner revealed that he doesn’t “have the energy” to take on demanding roles as he continues to recover from his near-fatal snow plow accident.
“I just don’t have the energy for it. I don’t have the fuel,” Renner shared. “I have so much fuel to put into this reality, this body, all this stuff. I can’t just go play make-believe right now. Because that takes a lot of time to get right here every day just so I can have a positive thought, so I can progress, so I can always keep growing.”
Renner was hospitalized in January 2023 for blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries after his Sno-Cat, a large snow plow weighing over 14,000 pounds, ran him over. Despite his injuries, he returned to the set of “Mayor of Kingstown” in January 2024 to film the third season.
Speaking with podcast hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes, Renner admitted feeling “very terrified” about his return to acting.
“Because I’m supposed to do, like, fucking fiction? I’m still trying to live in reality, I’m trying to live. So it was a hard line for me to cross,” he explained. “It was a big stretch. It was very, very challenging for me mentally to get over that hump.”
Renner confessed that he still struggles with the transition back to acting. “I don’t take it super seriously. I’m in a character that I can do very well and I know the show very well, so it was easy for me to kind of slide back into it,” he said of his role as Mike McLusky in “Mayor of Kingstown.” “But if it was a very challenging role, I couldn’t have taken it. Not challenging in the sense that — because the show’s challenging, but it’s if I had to go play Dahmer or something, something so far from me.”
Renner is set to star in Rian Johnson’s whodunit “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” his first film since the snow plow 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 for the “Knives Out” newcomers have yet to be revealed, though Renner’s likeness (in the form of a fictional branded hot sauce) appeared in the 2022 sequel “Glass Onion.”
