New Year’s Day will be a strange time in actor Jeremy Renner's household. Two years ago, on January 1, the star of Hawkeye was involved in a horrific accident near his home in Reno, Nevada. In a moment of heroism, he stopped a six-tonne snowcat from sliding down the driveway towards his nephew but, as he attempted to regain control, got caught up and was crushed by the vehicle. Airlifted to hospital, Renner was ravaged. He broke 38 bones.
“The incident muted all the white noise in my life,” he tells The National, with a thoughtful tone that only comes with a near-death experience. “I think a lot of people have white noise in their life: things in the background that prevent you from doing the things you want to do. Things are kind of in the way… and a lot of things cleared up out of my way, because everyone’s on the same page.”
Renner calls it a “wonderful silver lining” and his positivity is inspiring. When we meet, he’s just come from his ‘in conversation’ event at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah. Dressed in a chic-looking pinstripe suit, he lowers himself gingerly into his seat, but otherwise you’d never know he’d been through multiple surgeries and intense rehab. Renner admits he’s struck by the audience's love for him in Saudi Arabia. “Makes it cathartic for me to share my story,” he says. “It seems to be a collectively shared experience at this point. There’s something kind of awesome about that.”
He is surprised by how well known he is in the Middle East. “It’s hard for anybody to quantify that, to understand it,” he says. “You don’t know. If you do a movie, it doesn’t mean we’re in the theatre watching with the audiences. It’s a very delayed response. I don’t know if people knew who I was over here. I had no clue. It’s beautiful to have people admire your work. So when it does happen, around the world, on my travels, it’s a lovely thing. So I’m pretty blessed.”
It does fit the Hollywood narrative that an actor who rose to global fame in Marvel movie The Avengers, playing the dead-eyed, arrow-firing Hawkeye, is something of a superhero in his own right. As he told chat-show host Jimmy Fallon, after his surgeries, “half my face is metal” and “all the right side of my back is metal”, but this isn’t a comic-book fantasy. Renner’s rehabilitation has been long and difficult. Everything from peptide injections to cold plunges have been explored. “Right now, my body requires a lot of time,” he says.
Gradually, the actor, 53, is going back to work. This year, he played a part in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third movie in Rian Johnson’s whodunnit saga starring Daniel Craig as the slick detective Benoit Blanc. “Yeah, that was awesome,” says Renner. “It’ll probably come out next fall, I think. I had so much fun with Johnson. A great cast.”
Joining the likes of Josh O’Connor, Josh Brolin and Glenn Close was a significant job for Renner. “I realised doing that movie that the last two jobs I’d done had been repeating characters between Hawkeye and [Paramount+ series] Mayor of Kingstown. So since 2017 I hadn’t played any other new character. It’s a long time to just be two characters. It’s a very big departure from any character I played before in this Knives Up movie. So it was great. It was great also that I didn’t have to carry the film. It was just a big ensemble. So that was a nice departure as well.”
As his recovery steps up, so does the workload. In January, Renner will start the fourth season of Mayor of Kingstown, the crime thriller in which he plays Michigan’s Mike McLusky. The character heads a powerful family and brokers an uneasy peace between gangs and law-enforcers. “I like the narrative, like the world, and we’re in the fourth season coming up now, in January,” he says. “We’ll probably end up doing... maybe we’ll do five. I don’t know. We’ll see how much energy I have, but we’re doing the whole fourth season and I’m excited about that.”
The show reunites him with its co-creator Taylor Sheridan, who previously directed Renner in the 2017 modern-day-western Wind River. “There are other ideas I’m working on with Taylor in that kind of world, maybe another type of show,” Renner hints, before putting some wish-fulfilment out into the ether. “Maybe I get something that works at home, and then I can actually work where I live for the first time in my career! That would be nice. We’ll see that if that does happen or doesn’t.”
His physical issues aside, Renner says he is “creatively limited” in what he can do, as he is focused on looking after Ava Berlin, his 11-year-old daughter with former wife Sonni Pacheco, the Canadian model. “I’m still a father number one,” he says. “That’s my best role to date. So I will always want to be with her and support my daughter.
It means he’ll never take a job that takes him too far from her. “I haven’t done that for almost 10 years,” he says. “I’ve worked somewhere in the US or where it’s in the summer and she can visit.”
Renner could return to the more character-based work he did in his early years before he became a staple of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – films like Oscar-winning military drama The Hurt Locker or Dahmer, where he played notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
“I’m certainly open to exploring new things,” he says. “I’ve got lots of time now at this point,” he then bursts out laughing. “Because, apparently, I can’t be killed.”
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Company profile: buybackbazaar.com
Name: buybackbazaar.com
Started: January 2018
Founder(s): Pishu Ganglani and Ricky Husaini
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech, micro finance
Initial investment: $1 million
The Penguin
Starring: Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz
Creator: Lauren LeFranc
Rating: 4/5
The Pope's itinerary
Sunday, February 3, 2019 - Rome to Abu Dhabi
1pm: departure by plane from Rome / Fiumicino to Abu Dhabi
10pm: arrival at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
Monday, February 4
12pm: welcome ceremony at the main entrance of the Presidential Palace
12.20pm: visit Abu Dhabi Crown Prince at Presidential Palace
5pm: private meeting with Muslim Council of Elders at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
6.10pm: Inter-religious in the Founder's Memorial
Tuesday, February 5 - Abu Dhabi to Rome
9.15am: private visit to undisclosed cathedral
10.30am: public mass at Zayed Sports City – with a homily by Pope Francis
12.40pm: farewell at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
1pm: departure by plane to Rome
5pm: arrival at the Rome / Ciampino International Airport
The%20specs
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MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
The specs: Lamborghini Aventador SVJ
Price, base: Dh1,731,672
Engine: 6.5-litre V12
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 770hp @ 8,500rpm
Torque: 720Nm @ 6,750rpm
Fuel economy: 19.6L / 100km
About Housecall
Date started: July 2020
Founders: Omar and Humaid Alzaabi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech
# of staff: 10
Funding to date: Self-funded
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Going grey? A stylist's advice
If you’re going to go grey, a great style, well-cared for hair (in a sleek, classy style, like a bob), and a young spirit and attitude go a long way, says Maria Dowling, founder of the Maria Dowling Salon in Dubai.
It’s easier to go grey from a lighter colour, so you may want to do that first. And this is the time to try a shorter style, she advises. Then a stylist can introduce highlights, start lightening up the roots, and let it fade out. Once it’s entirely grey, a purple shampoo will prevent yellowing.
“Get professional help – there’s no other way to go around it,” she says. “And don’t just let it grow out because that looks really bad. Put effort into it: properly condition, straighten, get regular trims, make sure it’s glossy.”
RESULTS
Catchweight 82kg
Piotr Kuberski (POL) beat Ahmed Saeb (IRQ) by decision.
Women’s bantamweight
Corinne Laframboise (CAN) beat Cornelia Holm (SWE) by unanimous decision.
Welterweight
Omar Hussein (PAL) beat Vitalii Stoian (UKR) by unanimous decision.
Welterweight
Josh Togo (LEB) beat Ali Dyusenov (UZB) by unanimous decision.
Flyweight
Isaac Pimentel (BRA) beat Delfin Nawen (PHI) TKO round-3.
Catchweight 80kg
Seb Eubank (GBR) beat Emad Hanbali (SYR) KO round 1.
Lightweight
Mohammad Yahya (UAE) beat Ramadan Noaman (EGY) TKO round 2.
Lightweight
Alan Omer (GER) beat Reydon Romero (PHI) submission 1.
Welterweight
Juho Valamaa (FIN) beat Ahmed Labban (LEB) by unanimous decision.
Featherweight
Elias Boudegzdame (ALG) beat Austin Arnett (USA) by unanimous decision.
Super heavyweight
Maciej Sosnowski (POL) beat Ibrahim El Sawi (EGY) by submission round 1.