Jeremy Renner was noticeably absent from The Avengers: Infinity War, which was explained in the movie as Hawkeye retired to protect his family because of the events in Captain America: Civil War.
The actor happened to also break both of his arms on the second day of filming Tag, which filmed at the same time as Infinity War, as he suffered the injury while performing a stunt.
The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly features an interview with Renner where he explains how he was injured as he said he was filming a sequence that involved 20 to 30 chairs stacked about 20 feet high inside of a community hall, in a stunt that saw him being chased by Jon Hamm and fellow cast members Ed Helms, Hannibal Buress, and Jake Johnson. The scene saw Renner’s character racing up the stacked chairs in an attempt to escape, but Renner said that the rigging on the chairs broke and “I broke along with it and fell on the ground and broke my arms.”
Jeremy Renner continued with mention that at first he didn’t realize he had even broken his arms and continued on with the stunt.
“Then I realized, I think something’s wrong, so I went to the hospital, and they said it was broken, so I got them wrapped up and then I went back to work and did everything I could do to continue on as we did,” Renner said.
Jon Hamm recently revealed that Jeremy Renner finished filming the scenes with CGI as they covered Renner’s arms in green screen material.
“I went back to shoot that day, I didn’t take anything out of the cast and they had to put like a clean sleeve over my arm, because I didn’t want to take it off right after I just broke it, I needed it to set, I wanted the bone to set, so I think they had to CGI my arm or something in just that one scene, but the rest of it, you know, it all went on okay,” Renner said.
As The Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 movies filmed at the same time, it’s revealed that Renner was also hurt for those movies.
“It’s sort of like a battle of my will to heal as fast as I possibly could, I did therapy just painfully everyday and I was able to get through it all as best as I could,” Renner said.“What else do you do, you just stop and cry and everyone go home? You know what I mean? I’d be like, ‘sorry guys, I’m not going to use a bow and arrow now in Avengers,’ it’s silly, so I have to kind of push through so that you can perform for everyone.”
Renner also says he is still healing from the incident.
“I’m healed, I’m not at full strength, I haven’t been doing any training or anything, but I think I’ll probably get back and start actually doing something really physical,” he said. “When I couldn’t pick up my daughter, that was a very upsetting time, but once I was able to do that, then I was healed in my mind.”
The Avengers 4 hits May 3, 2019.