Jeremy Renner Says Friendship Between ‘Avengers’ Co-Stars Is “A Real Thing”: “I’d Rather Go To Jail With Downey Than Go Do Something Amazing By Myself”

Armando Tinoco
·2-min read

Jeremy Renner says that his friendship with his Avengers co-stars is “a real thing” and not something only for social media.

After the snowplow accident, Renner says his co-stars were there for him every step of the way during his recovery.

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“Oh, f*** yeah, it’s a real thing—it’s not just for Instagram. We f***n’ hate that sh**,” Renner told Men’s Health. “No, we have a family chat and have for a long time. When you work with people—look, we all went through a culturally significant experience together.”

Renner continued, “And there’s divorces and marriages and babies; a lot of stuff happened in these 12 years. In the films, we look like we’re at a costume party, and there’s ridiculous props and we’re doing these ridiculous things, but it’s also beautiful because we’re all connected.”

The Hawkeye star said, “There’s a brotherhood or sisterhood or whatever the heck you want to call it. I just call it love. I love every one of them. I’d rather go to jail with [Robert] Downey [Jr.] than go do something amazing by myself. I’d rather get in a car crash with [Chris] Evans.”

Renner recently opened up about the struggle he faces following the January 2023 accident that almost took his life. The actor says that he would rather take on roles that are less demanding of him emotionally.

“I just don’t have the energy for it. I don’t have the fuel,” Renner said on the Smartless podcast, hosted by Will Arnett, Sean Hayes, and Jason Bateman. “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.”

He said returning to Mayor of Kingstown wasn’t difficult as he already knew the character, “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.”

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