Jeremy Renner is ‘very afraid’ to return to acting after snowplow accident | Jeremy Renner

Jeremy Renner doesn’t have the energy to take on challenging roles after his near-fatal snowplow accident 18 months ago and says he’s “very scared” to act again.

Speaking on the “Smartless” podcast, hosted by actors Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, the Oscar-nominated actor said he finds acting more difficult than it was before January 2023, when he was hospitalized in critical condition after being run over by his own Sno-Cat while clearing snow from roads near his Nevada home.

“I just don’t have the energy. I don’t have the fuel,” Renner said. “I have to put so much fuel into this reality, into this body, into all this stuff. I can’t just pretend right now. Because that takes a lot of time to come right here every day just so I can have a positive thought, so I can make progress, so I can keep growing.”

Renner is best known for his roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Mission Impossible films, as well as his Oscar-nominated role in The Hurt Locker.

After a year of rehabilitation, during which he had to recover from over 30 broken bones and learn to walk unaided again, Renner returned to acting in January of this year to film the third season of his drama “Mayor of Kingstown.”

Of his return to acting, the 53-year-old told Arnett, Bateman and Hayes: “I’m still trying to live in reality, I’m trying to live. So it was a difficult boundary for me to cross. It was a big challenge. It was a big, big mental challenge for me to get over that hurdle.”

“Sometimes I still struggle with it… I don’t take it too seriously. I’m playing a role that I can play very well and I know the show very well, so it was easy for me to slip back into it,” Renner said of returning to the role of Mike McLusky in Mayor of Kingstown. “But if it had been a very demanding role, I wouldn’t have been able to take it. Not challenging in that sense – because the show is demanding – but it would be like having to play Dahmer or something, something that is so far removed from me.”

Renner will next be seen opposite Daniel Craig in Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man. It will be his first film role since the accident. Renner joins Johnson’s crime series with Andrew Scott, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Josh Brolin, Josh O’Connor and Cailee Spaeny.