By Nick Holdsworth, The Hollywood Reporter
Jeremy Renner has broken both his arms in a stunt that went wrong while filming, the actor, who is currently working on Avengers: Infinity War, said Friday.
Speaking before a Karlovy Vary film festival screening of Taylor Sheridan‘s Wind River, in which Renner plays a federal wildlife officer drafted to help solve a murder on a Native American reservation in Wyoming, Renner said the injuries would not affect his ability to do his job.
“It won’t stop things that I need to do. I heal fast and am doing everything I can to heal faster,” he said.
“I am doing a comedy that has a few stunts in,” he said with a smile. “It won’t really affect my job. It affects how I get dressed in the morning — I cannot tie my shoes.”
Jeremy Renner posted about his injuries on Instagram:
Renner, who declined to specify precisely which film he had sustained his injuries in, said: “I shall heal up before Avengers starts up again. I have fractured my right elbow and left wrist,” adding with a grin: “This is my face in pain.”
Sources confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the injury happened on the set of the New Line comedy Tag, which like Avengers, is shooting in Atlanta.
At the Czech Republic press conference, Renner said he was drawn to Wind River, which marks Sheridan’s directorial debut, by the story and emotional challenge of playing the character and was hoping to appear in Sheridan’s next film.
“If I continue to work as an actor, I think I shall do the bulk of my movies with [Sheridan],” Renner said.
“For a first-time director, he is an amazing writer and is well known for that. As a director he is a brass tacks kind of guy — he gets things done efficiently and truthfully. He is a no-nonsense guy. We got along very well; he is super smart for a guy who comes across like a cowboy type — hyper intelligent and emotionally intelligent too.”
Working on a film that was both about and funded by Native Americans gave Renner a “much more intimate” insight into the lives of “people who live on reservations,” he said.
Although the film was conceived before the current events at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where Native Americans are protesting an oil pipeline being built across what they consider sacred land, its release coincides with much greater interest in Native American issues, he said.
“We are blessed and lucky that is something topical; it bodes well for our movie but that is not what we intended,” he said. “This is a character drama on a reservation and about a community on that reservation.”
He added that one of the reasons he took the role in Wind River was to play opposite his co-star Elizabeth Olsen, with whom he has acted on two Avengers movies.
“Getting the opportunity to work with a friend in a different capacity, diving into emotional character stuff, we were able to do more things and a little differently than with an actress I did not know very well,” Renner said.
He also had praise for Kathryn Bigelow, with whom he worked on The Hurt Locker.
“She is tough, but Kathryn trusted me as I trusted her. She put me in positions to excel or suck. She is strong and mentally tough; unflappable, sweet, and tender. Thoughtful and emotionally intelligent,” he said. “But do not mess with her. She will cut you down with words if she needs to. But she would rather not. She is a fantastic partner to work with.”
Speaking to the audience after the screening of Wind River in Karlovy Vary’s 2,000-seat grand hall, asked about the current situation at Standing Rock, Renner told the audience the film was able to raise awareness of the wider picture: “It is not just about the past, but about the atrocities that the American government is also putting on the people and the land that they have been shoved into the darkest coldest corners of our country. It is about awareness, that is the important thing,” adding that that he simply had “no words” about President Donald Trump’s decision to back the construction of an oil pipeline across Native American lands at Standing Rock.
Renner is due to receive Karlovy Vary’s presidential award at the festival’s closing ceremony Saturday night.
July 7, 11:11 a.m.: Updated story and headline to reflect that Renner’s injury came on the set of Tag.
Jeremy Renner in ‘Wind River’: Watch a clip:
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