Jeremy Renner

• 1. Introduction

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  Jeremy Renner is an American actor who, on the 1st of January 2023, ended a holiday morning with 38 broken bones. His nephew had been in danger from a snowplow. Renner saved him, and he was the one who was struck. Most of the public knows the face from superhero films, crime dramas and award-season thrillers. Far fewer know how it got there. What path leads an actor from forgettable bit parts to two Academy Award nominations and one of the biggest franchises in film? And what does a body this badly broken do to a career that was already this far along? The answers start long before any camera, in a place with no connection to Hollywood at all.

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• 2. Modesto Roots

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  McHenry Bowl, a bowling alley in Modesto, California, was where Lee Renner and Valerie Cearley worked as managers during the 1980s. Cearley's maiden name was Tague. Their son Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto on the 7th of January 1971. His parents had married as teenagers, and they divorced when he was ten. He is the oldest of seven siblings, and the youngest was not born until 2011. His family background is Irish and German.

  In 1989 he graduated from Fred C. Beyer High School in Modesto. He then enrolled at Modesto Junior College, and the subjects he chose there were computer science and criminology. Acting was not on the list. A drama class, taken only as an elective, changed his plans, and he decided to pursue the stage and screen instead. His first screen credit came in 1995.

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• 3. Small Parts, Dark Roles

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  National Lampoon's Senior Trip, released in 1995, gave Renner his film debut as an underachieving student. Critics panned the comedy. Television came next, with guest spots on Deadly Games and Strange Luck. He also played the friend of Paul Hewitt, a character portrayed by Brian Austin Green, in the television film A Friend's Betrayal. Through 1999 and 2000 he appeared in Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane, The Net, The Time of Your Life and Angel. In 2001 he had a small part in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Throughout these lean years he paid the bills by working as a makeup artist.

  In 2002 he starred in Dahmer, playing the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Renner found it hard to shake the role once filming ended, because he knew that Dahmer had murdered seventeen victims. Reviewers liked the performance, and it brought a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male. In 2003 he appeared as a Bad Boy Sheriff in Pink's music video for her song "Trouble". That same year he played the former police partner of Colin Farrell's character in S.W.A.T. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things followed in 2004.

  The year 2005 was crowded. He starred opposite Julia Stiles and Forest Whitaker in A Little Trip to Heaven and took roles in North Country and 12 and Holding. In Neo Ned, alongside Gabrielle Union, he played a neo-Nazi skinhead who is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The film won awards at several festivals, among them the Palm Beach International Film Festival Award for Best Actor. He also had an uncredited turn in the skateboard film Lords of Dogtown, as the manager of the character played by Emile Hirsch. Love Comes to the Executioner, with Ginnifer Goodwin, followed in 2006.

  In 2007 Renner played Wood Hite, cousin of the outlaw Jesse James, in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Brad Pitt portrayed James in that critically acclaimed film. Renner was also Sergeant Doyle in 28 Weeks Later, and he starred with Minnie Driver in Take. On television he guest-starred in House as a reckless rock musician who is a patient. He had a part in the pilot of The Oaks, but the series was not picked up. A film directed by Kathryn Bigelow lay ahead.

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• 4. Breakout Years

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  Sergeant First Class William James, a U.S. Army bomb disposal expert in the Iraq War, was the character who changed everything. Renner played him in the 2009 thriller The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow. He had just come off the comedy-drama Ingenious and the short-lived series The Unusuals. The Hurt Locker earned him several Best Actor awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination and his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

  Ben Affleck's The Town arrived in 2010, with Jon Hamm and Blake Lively in the cast. Reviews of Renner's work in it were extremely positive. He earned a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor. He also received his first Golden Globe nomination, in the same category, and a second Screen Actors Guild nomination. The Hollywood Reporter listed him among young actors who were either pushing or being pushed toward the new A-List of Hollywood.

  In 2013 David O. Russell's American Hustle put Renner in an ensemble with Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence. The story was based on the controversial FBI ABSCAM operation, which ran from the late 1970s into the early 1980s. The cast won a Screen Actors Guild Award, and the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

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• 5. Hawkeye and Franchises

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  Hawkeye made his first screen appearance in 2011, as an uncredited cameo in Marvel Studios' Thor, hinting at a starring role in The Avengers. That film reached theaters in May 2012. The same year, Renner took over a franchise from a major star. The Bourne Legacy, written and directed by Tony Gilroy, introduced Aaron Cross as the lead in place of Jason Bourne, played by Matt Damon in the first three films. Asked about working with Damon in the future, Renner said a Bourne film together "would be kick-ass. I love Matt".

  In 2011 he also joined the Mission: Impossible series, playing William Brandt in the fourth film, Ghost Protocol. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, shot in 2011 and released in January 2013, cast him as Hansel opposite Gemma Arterton. The 3-D fantasy is set 15 years after the pair killed the witch who had kidnapped them.

  He reprised Hawkeye in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, and he returned to Mission: Impossible that July in Rogue Nation. Captain America: Civil War brought Hawkeye back again in 2016. To prepare for the Mission: Impossible and Avengers roles, he studied the martial arts of Arnis and Muay Thai.

  Scheduling then caught up with him. Renner filmed scenes as Hawkeye for Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, but they were moved to Avengers: Endgame, where he had a starring role in 2019. The overlap with those two productions kept him from reprising Brandt in Mission: Impossible - Fallout in 2018.

  The character got his own series in 2021, the six-episode Disney+ miniseries Hawkeye, with Renner in the lead. He also voiced the archer in four episodes of What If...? between 2021 and 2023. In 2024 footage from his series reappeared in an Echo episode titled "Chafa".

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• 6. The Producer's Chair

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  Kill the Messenger, released by Focus Features in October 2014, cast Renner as the journalist Gary Webb, based on Webb's book Dark Alliance. Renner also co-produced it. In December 2014 Crackle aired The Throwaways, for which he was an executive producer. In 2015 his production company, The Combine, signed a deal with PalmStar Media. He went on to produce The Founder in 2016, which stars Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc. That year he was also an executive producer on Knightfall, a historical drama on History.

  Acting work continued alongside. In 2016 he co-starred with Amy Adams in the science-fiction film Arrival, and he appeared with his Marvel colleague Elizabeth Olsen in Wind River. In 2017 he played George Gibbs in a stage production of Our Town at the Fox Theatre. During work on the film Tag, released in 2018, he fractured his right elbow and his left wrist.

  In 2021 Renner began starring as Mike McLusky in Mayor of Kingstown, a crime thriller series on Paramount+. It has run to 40 episodes in the filmography, and he is an executive producer as well. He also executive-produced Rennervations, a four-episode miniseries from 2023.

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• 7. Off Camera

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  Renner is a singer-songwriter who plays guitar, keyboards and drums. Early in his acting career he performed in the Sons of Ben. His voice has turned up on film soundtracks: "I Drink Alone" in North Country, "American Pie" in Love Comes to the Executioner and "Good Ole Rebel" in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. He also appeared in a music video for "Scenes on Sunset" by Brother Sal. In 2018 he was featured on Sam Feldt's single "Heaven (Don't Have a Name)". His first EP, The Medicine, came out on the 27th of March 2020.

  In March 2017 he launched a mobile app, called Jeremy Renner on Android and Jeremy Renner Official on iOS. It was built by Escapex, a company that makes monetized apps for celebrities. Fast Company wrote at length about it in April 2019, calling it a surprising new kind of social media. Fans filled the community with memes and selfies, plus a Wednesday event called "Happy Rennsday". Complaints began by October 2017, including claims of censorship, bullying and contest-rigging. In September 2019 the comedian Stefan Heck publicized that replies in the app showed up in push notifications as if Renner had sent them himself. After users abused that feature, Renner asked Escapex to shut the app down.

  He married the Canadian model Sonni Pacheco on the 13th of January 2014. She filed for divorce on the 30th of December 2014, citing irreconcilable differences. They have a daughter and share custody. Pacheco and the child both made cameo appearances in American Hustle.

  Since 2014 Renner has lived in Washoe County, Nevada, near Nevada State Route 431 and the Mount Rose ski resort. He runs a house-renovating business with his best friend, the actor Kristoffer Winters. A devoted San Francisco 49ers fan, he narrated the 49ers side of an NFL Network episode of The Timeline called "A Tale of Two Cities". Sam Elliott narrated the Dallas side. Renner also narrated the introductory video for the opening of Levi's Stadium. In 2024 he appeared with his daughter in a Silk commercial during the Super Bowl.

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• 8. Recovery and Return

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  A snowcat weighing 14,330 pounds is what hit Renner that January morning, causing blunt chest trauma on top of the broken bones. A helicopter flew him to Renown Regional Medical Center. He had surgery and stayed in intensive care in critical condition. By the 17th of January he had been released and was recovering at home. About three months after the accident he was starting to walk with a cane. Doctors said his health and fitness had probably helped him survive.

  In 2023 he founded the RennerVation Foundation, a charity supporting foster kids and at-risk youth. It hosts a summer camp at Lake Tahoe. In June 2024 he was the subject of a Men's Health cover story in the magazine's summer issue. It included his own account of the accident and a detailed list of his injuries. Renner has admitted that before the accident he struggled with the fame that came with Hawkeye. Since then he has been friendlier in public, as fans wish him well and relate to his recovery. His 2024 EP, Love and Titanium, was a musical project inspired directly by that recovery.

  A memoir, My Next Breath, followed on the 29th of April 2025, published by Flatrock, a subsidiary of MacMillan. Renner reads the audiobook himself, and it includes recordings of the event and a special recording. His first major feature role after the accident was in Wake Up Dead Man, Rian Johnson's 2025 mystery and the third Knives Out film. He plays Dr. Nathaniel "Nat" Sharp, and coverage of the film focused heavily on his return.

  In November 2025 the filmmaker Yi Zhou accused Renner of sexual misconduct and abuse. She alleged he sent her unsolicited sexual photos earlier that year. She also said he shouted at her while drunk at his home, leaving her afraid for her life, and threatened to "call ICE" on her after she confronted him. Renner denied the allegations and described a "brief consensual encounter". His attorney answered with a cease-and-desist letter to Zhou.

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