\n<\/p>\n
S<\/span>ix ribs broken in 14 places. Three breaks in the lower pelvis. Right and left ankle\u00a0broken. Left tibia broken. Left\u00a0wrist fractured. Left toes, three breaks. Right clavicle broken. Right shoulder blade cracked. Eye socket, jaw, mandible, all broken. Major\u00a0laceration back of head. Lung collapsed. Liver pierced from rib bone. The\u00a0inventory of Jeremy Renner\u2019s injuries, documented by the twice Oscar-nominated movie star himself, was exhaustive. It was a miracle that the actor had survived; he had no right to. Renner had been crushed by his own 14,000lb (6,350kg) snowplough on New Year\u2019s Day 2023. A\u00a0neighbour who helped him at the scene believes he died momentarily. So does Renner. He tells me it was a very special moment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I experienced when I passed was this collective divinity and beautiful, powerful peace. It is the most exhilarating peace you could ever feel. It\u2019s the highest adrenaline rush. Everything stopped \u2026 maybe for 30 seconds, maybe a minute. It was definitive for me. It all made perfect sense.\u201d Does he believe in God? \u201cNo. My dad\u2019s a theologist and I studied all religions growing up, so I steer away from religions.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Renner is sitting in front of me in a London hotel, very much alive, looking fit, flawless and grateful. He\u2019s written a memoir, My Next Breath. It\u2019s not simply the story of surviving against all odds, it\u2019s the story of a man who found a new sense of purpose in extremis. \u201cBeing here to talk about my book is so different from having to talk about Mission: Impossible!\u201d he says before he\u2019s even sat down. What\u2019s the difference? \u201cWell, we\u2019d be talking about stunts and the joy of being in a big action movie with one of the biggest stars around, Tom Cruise.\u201d<\/p>\n However much enthusiasm he tries to muster for chatting about the Mission: Impossible franchise, it\u2019s obvious which subject he prefers. \u201cThe big difference is fiction and nonfiction. I have a real issue now with fiction. I don\u2019t have much time in my life for it, having come back from such a pretty harrowing experience of real reality. I have to focus on reality even though I play make-believe for a living. I have to really believe in my recovery to walk again right and to breathe again right and to love and \u2026 experience \u2026 and \u2026\u201d He trails off, a\u00a0fog of words disappearing into the ether.<\/p>\n Has that created an existential crisis \u2013 being an actor who doesn\u2019t want to act? \u201cI had a battle with that, because a year ago my real battle was with just walking, right? I had to focus so much energy just on walking.\u201d He mumbles some more \u2013 think Elvis in Vegas. I catch half-sentences about making series two and three of the Mayor of Kingstown, in which he plays rock-hard powerbroker Mike McLusky, learning to trust his body again, getting used to the real world.<\/p>\n <\/span>Renner posts a selfie from his hospital bed days after his accident in January 2023.<\/span> Photograph: Jeremy Renner Instagram<\/p>\n Renner is a classic mumblecore actor. Not quite the full Brando, but he\u2019s good. In films it gives him an easy naturalism and, often, a scary authenticity. In an interview situation, when you\u2019re hanging on to every word, it can be frustrating. It\u2019s not surprising that he was cast as a superhero in The Avengers films and its spin-off TV series Hawkeye. He looks like one \u2013 small, strong, compact; a nine-volt battery of a man. In so many movies, he plays the toughest in a group of toughies. Despite his size, he\u2019s the one whom the big guy messes with at his peril. Renner\u2019s characters are often reckless adrenaline junkies on the cusp of crazy.<\/p>\n He is the first person to admit that despite huge success playing these rock-hard superheroes, rock-hard military men (The Hurt Locker, which earned him a best actor Oscar nomination in 2010), rock-hard criminals (The Town, which won him a best supporting Oscar nomination a year later), rock-hard black ops agents (The Bourne Legacy) and rock-hard analysts (Mission: Impossible), he wasn\u2019t the happiest of bunnies. He often grumbled about his work, hated being away from his daughter Ava, and had recently been involved in a humiliating public divorce in which all sorts of allegations were slung at him.<\/p>\n For most of the time, he just wanted to be at home relaxing with his huge extended family (Renner is the oldest of seven siblings), his friends, and most of all Ava. Which, ironically, is what he had been doing when the accident happened. He had driven over from his former home in the Hollywood Hills to his residence near Reno, Nevada, which he calls Camp Renner. This was where the family would meet to mark special occasions and enjoy skiing and snowboarding.<\/p>\n The six-acre estate at Lake Tahoe sits 7,300ft above sea level on a private road off the Mount Rose Highway. Renner renovated the property himself after buying it in 2012 (he has had a lucrative and satisfying sideline in renovations \u2013 or Rennervations, as he calls them \u2013 throughout his acting career).<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Sebastian Nevols\/The GuardianI just had to act. There was no way I was going to take that risk and see my nephew\u2019s head on the ground cut in half <\/p>\n On 30 December 2022, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reported that there could be up to 5ft of snow and the\u00a0forecast had been upgraded to a winter storm with gusts possibly exceeding 100mph for Sierra ridges. By\u00a031\u00a0December, they had no mobile phone service and no internet at Camp Renner, and they were snowed in. But with the help of his tank-like snowcat, they were still hoping to ski on New Year\u2019s Day. The snowcat is an industrial snow remover \u2013 a cab sits above six sets of heavy wheels and two sets of galvanised steel tracks made up of 76 blades that extend outward beyond the body of the vehicle.<\/p>\n It was 6am when Renner jumped into the snowcat. He was hoping to clear the driveway and dig out the parked vehicles. It was a big job, so he asked his 27-year-old nephew Alex to help him. Once they were done with the driveway, they\u2019d be fine \u2013 the main road had already been ploughed. They had cleared most of the snow when Renner got out of the snowcat to have a word with Alex. That\u2019s when the vehicle began to slide on the icy asphalt. Renner realised he hadn\u2019t put the brake on. The snowcat was heading straight for Alex, who was trapped between the monster machine and a pickup truck. The only chance to save his nephew was to leap across the snowcat\u2019s 3ft metal tracks and up into the cab and hit the stop button. He remembers shouting, \u201cNot today, motherfucker\u201d, as he thought Alex was about to be crushed to death. The response of an action hero.<\/p>\n Renner missed the cab. He was catapulted forward, off the spinning metal tracks, on to the ice. The snowcat continued to charge forward, and over him. \u201cThere came terrible crunching sounds as 14,000lb of galvanised steel machinery slowly, inexorably, monotonously, ground over my body. It was a horrifying soundtrack,\u201d he writes in My Next Breath. \u201cSkull, jaw, cheekbones, molars; fibula, tibia, lungs, eye sockets, cranium, pelvis, ulna, legs, arms, skin; crack, snap, crack, squeeze, crack. More sounds: a ringing in the ears, as if a large-calibre gun had unloaded next to my head. A sting of bright white in my eyes \u2013 I am blinded by a coruscating lightning, a lightning that signals the break of my orbital bone, causing my left eyeball to violently burst out of my skull.\u201d<\/p>\n I had a bunch of people waiting for me to go skiing! I didn\u2019t want to let them down. That became such a big thing <\/p>\n It felt like an eternity, but within a few seconds the snowcat had passed over him. It was still surging forward, but Alex had managed to get out of its way. Would the snowcat have hit Alex if he\u2019d not intervened? \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say. You\u2019ve not got time to make a rational decision. You just do it. The worst scenario is that he is crushed. So I just had to act. There was no way I was going to take that risk and see my nephew\u2019s head on the ground cut in half. No chance. I\u2019m not doing that. I\u2019m not taking the chance, so that\u2019s why I\u2019d do it again in two seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n Renner\u2019s still not sure how he survived. So many factors played a part. He cites the Lamaze breathing class he went to aged 12 with his mother when she was pregnant; he went on to use the technique in auditions or when he was stressed. Renner used to have a placard on the wall in his apartment saying \u201cDon\u2019t forget to breathe\u201d. But at the time of the accident, the act of doing so was excruciating. As he struggled for oxygen, carbon dioxide built up in his lungs and bloodstream, and he felt that he was drowning. On the recording of his neighbour\u2019s emergency call you can hear Renner trying to breathe. Each guttural groan sounds like a death rattle. One technique he used was to repeat the expression \u201chookers, whores and hamburgers\u201d in a mantra-like way, because the huffing of the \u201cH\u201d forced him to work his lungs.<\/p>\n His two neighbours, Rich Kovach and Barb Fletcher, whom he had never met before, stayed with him, keeping him alive as he lay in a pool of blood. Alex sat on his haunches, holding up Renner\u2019s smashed arm to prevent it flopping into his crushed rib cage and punctured lung and stopping him from breathing. Renner\u2019s left eye had landed on the ice; he could see it with the eye that was still in its socket. (Amazingly, he could also still see with the eye that was hanging out.) Dark thoughts began to intrude. \u201cAm I going to live like I\u2019m in some kind of petri dish, a fucking science experiment? Will I just be a brain inside a ruined body? A vegetable.\u201d And yet part of him thought if he could just ease the cramp, he\u2019d be able to walk back to the house.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Fletcher held his head and kept talking to him, desperate for him not to lose consciousness. \u201cJust keep breathing,\u201d she told him. \u201cJust take shallow breaths. Stay with us. Keep your eyes open.\u201d It was Fletcher who was holding him when he went clammy and his skin turned green-grey.<\/p>\n Renner tells me today that so much of it was down to willpower. \u201cI was bullying my body into thinking it wasn\u2019t that bad and my mind was overcoming the greatest odds it\u2019s ever come up against. My mind was saying, \u2018Nah!\u2019 It was part stubbornness. \u2018I don\u2019t want to lose this battle, this game\u2019, but the deeper part, the zoomed-out part, is I had so much to live for. I had a bunch of people waiting for me to go skiing!\u201d He smiles. He knows it was a ridiculous thing to be thinking, but it kept him going. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to let them down. That became such a big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Sebastian Nevols\/The GuardianMy mouth is still complete chaos. It\u00a0looks fine, but when I bite down it feels as if I\u2019m going\u00a0to break all my teeth <\/p>\n But, of course, there was more to it than willpower. Last year, he released his second album of largely self-penned songs. Love and Titanium is about the accident, and so called because these are another two things that have helped him pull through \u2013 the love of family and friends, and the titanium that has helped fix all those broken bones. He was also extremely lucky. Nobody gave him much hope at the time \u2013 Alex, Kovach and Fletcher, the medical team who helicoptered him to hospital, the paramedic who pierced his chest cavity to enable him to breathe more easily, all thought he was a goner. \u201cThat guy who impaled my chest to release the pressure was a friend of a friend, and he called my friend after he did it and he said, \u2018We did the best we could.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A<\/span>lmost as amazing as his survival was the fact that he only stayed 12 days in hospital. In fact, high on morphine and fentanyl, attached to drips and unable to walk, he tried to escape far earlier. \u201cIt was the slowest breakout ever,\u201d he says, laughing. As he talks, I\u2019m looking him up and down for signs of damage. Nothing. Eventually I spot an elegant circle around his ankle. It looks more like a bracelet than a war wound. Is that a scar, I ask. He nods. \u201cI have a bunch of little scars, but only from the surgery to save my body. The whole leg is titanium from the knee down to the ankle.\u201d<\/p>\n Is he still in pain? \u201cMy mouth is still complete chaos.\u201d Let\u2019s have a look, I say. He opens wide, obligingly. \u201cIt looks fine, but when I bite down it feels as if I\u2019m going to break all my teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n As an actor, Renner was famous for his athleticism and suppleness. Like Cruise, he did his own stunts. Are there things he can no longer do? \u201cI don\u2019t know. In my mind no, in my body probably. I\u2019m also 54. But my mind still thinks I\u2019m 20.\u201d<\/p>\n The first song on Love and Titanium is called Lucky Man. \u201cOne day you just wake up \/ And finally realise \/ Life is so god damn beautiful \/ And I ain\u2019t got nothin\u2019 left to lose.\u201d Renner tells me that it took him the accident\u00a0to realise just how beautiful life was. Now, he says, he\u00a0wakes up and knows he\u2019s not going to have a bad\u00a0day. No day alive is a bad day. But it didn\u2019t used to be like that.<\/p>\n Some people are natural celebrities. Renner is not one of them. He struggled with his fame. In the TV series Hawkeye, there\u2019s a scene where his eponymous superhero is in a public toilet, and the man peeing next to him asks for a selfie. He says this happened to him in real life. At airports, he would often eat his meals in the toilet cubicles to avoid the public. He loathed the way some fans thought they had a right to his time whatever he was doing. And then there was the way people assumed they knew him, though they tended to talk to him as if he was the character they\u2019d last seen him playing. He felt it was diminishing. \u201cAs a celebrity, you\u2019re a product and you\u2019re viewed as a bunch of different things. I might be Hawkeye to somebody, I\u00a0might be this to somebody else, but I\u2019m still a man; just a human eating spaghetti with my daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Renner in TV miniseries Hawkeye, 2021.<\/span> Photograph: Chuck Zlotnick\/Image supplied by Capital Pictures<\/span>With Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible \u2013 Rogue Nation, 2015.<\/span> Photograph: Paramount\/Everett\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n That\u2019s all changed. He loves the way people now talk to him as Jeremy Renner, the man who survived a terrible accident. He feels people can relate to him, at last. We might not have been run over by a 14,000lb snowplough, but all of us have experienced bad luck in one form or another. \u201cThere\u2019s a beautiful intimacy and openness and vulnerability and kindness and thoughtfulness I get from people now, instead of just taking their deserved selfie. It\u2019s a different human exchange. I think it\u2019s given them a pathway. They feel, \u2018He\u2019s a human just like I am.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/span><\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n I tell him that I like the honesty of his book. He writes that he was a man who was hard to love. At times he comes across as grumpy, churlish and antisocial. Has that changed? \u201cI think all the parts of the recipe that made me are still there. But I don\u2019t think I have much time to be grumpy now.\u201d Why was he so grumpy? \u201cI\u00a0was dissatisfied with a lot of things in my life.\u201d Such as? \u201cNot having<\/em> my life!\u201d In what way? \u201cI was the one putting all the obstacles in my way. By obstacles I mean jobs. I was wildly successful, and I wanted to take advantage of every opportunity I would get. But it wasn\u2019t healthy for a balanced life. Four birthdays in a row I didn\u2019t see one family member. You\u2019re always doing amazing things \u2013 Avengers, The Bourne Legacy and all these great big movies. Awesome! But the dissatisfaction was not being with those I love.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>With Anthony Mackie in The Hurt Locker, 2008.<\/span> Photograph: Ken Regan\/THA\/Shutterstock<\/span>With Rachel Weisz in The Bourne Legacy, 2012.<\/span> Photograph: Universal\/Everett\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Why did he keep doing it if it made him unhappy? \u201cI\u00a0knew there was going to be an ending to this stuff. So I had to put these franchises as the priority. I caught fire from The Hurt Locker and then all these great opportunities came along. It was the Academy Awards two years in a row, my mom was my date, all these great blessings, and that was great. But only when the movies came out did I really get to see my family [for the premieres]. There are 25 of us. A bus has to come and pick up the family, but I was still missing out.\u201d And when he wasn\u2019t making movies, he was renovating houses. \u201cI built 26 homes in 20 years. And my music was also a priority. So I had all these things spinning. I\u00a0just know where my priorities lie now, and nothing can get in their way at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n Renner comes across as supremely competitive in the book. In the 1980s, his father managed a bowling alley in Modesto, California where the actor grew up. By the age of 12, he says, he was good enough to bowl against professionals in a competitive league. But that wasn\u2019t enough for him. He wanted to be the best, and when he wasn\u2019t he went into meltdown. \u201cSelf-doubt turned into hatred, hatred into anger, anger into rage,\u201d he writes. In the end, he walked away from bowling.<\/p>\n He also makes it clear that he always expects the best from those around him. When he feels disappointed by friends or family members, he\u2019d give them a good, sharp Renner Talk, \u201cwhere I challenge people to improve, to commit harder, to face their failings and be better, to not be afraid\u201d.<\/p>\n He has given himself plenty of Renner Talks over the years. Throughout his 20s he challenged his fears. Anything he was frightened of, he took on, whether it was fear of success, intimacy, snakes or heights. In the case of sharks, he got a scuba diving licence, then a master diver\u2019s licence and went swimming with them. Ultimately, he says, nothing scared him.<\/p>\n Is he as tough as the characters he plays? \u201cI think I\u2019m softer.\u201d He mulls it over. \u201cI\u2019ve got my mom\u2019s toughness. She has this inner strength, this fortitude.\u201d What about the physical toughness? \u201cYeah, I get that from her as well. She was an athlete. I also have the soft, curious mind of my father.\u201d<\/p>\n At times, you sound terrifying, I say. I read an interview in which he talked about having to \u201cchoke out\u201d men when they were causing him bother. He gives me a butter-wouldn\u2019t-melt look and giggles. \u201cThe family do like having skill sets, like the girls like to do wrist locks and know how to throw a throat punch. I\u2019ll show them how to do these things.\u201d But no, he says, he wouldn\u2019t do anything violent \u2013 in fact, he does the opposite. \u201cSo if somebody is acting hysterical I just touch them, and they\u2019re like, what happened? I get their attention by touching their throat. It\u2019s like giving someone a hug when they\u2019re mad at you.\u201d And he gently taps his throat by way of illustration.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a bit flummoxed. Perhaps I\u2019m confusing him with somebody else. When I get home, I check old interviews with Renner, and sure enough there it is in a 2015 Playboy piece when he says: \u201cThis guy got really drunk and pushed Julia Stiles, my co-star [in the 2005 movie A Little Trip to Heaven]. I kindly choked him out and remedied the situation. I\u2019ve also had to choke people out because they pushed my mom or knocked my sister down, but I\u2019ve never felt like a badass.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Sebastian Nevols\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Renner is famous for outre comments. In 2015, he and Jennifer Lopez presented the best actor in a television mini-series award at the Golden Globes. Lopez offered to open the envelope. \u201cYou want me to do it? I have the nails,\u201d she said to Renner. \u201cYou got the globes, too,\u201d he replied, staring at her chest. While many people on social media lambasted him for the comment, he told Playboy: \u201cActually, Jennifer thought it was fucking funny and got a little sweaty and maybe even turned on by the whole experience. Other people started running their mouths about it. Everybody\u2019s entitled to an opinion, but I can\u2019t be bothered. We gave zero fucks.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, Renner met more controversy when court custody filings became public. The actor Sonni Pacheco, 20 years his junior, filed for divorce in 2014 after they had been married for 10 months, but details of their long-running custody battle didn\u2019t emerge till five years later. Pacheco asked for sole custody, saying Renner was an \u201cunfit parent\u201d. She claimed he had talked about killing her and then taking his own life, and that he had bitten Ava\u2019s shoulder. Renner described the allegations as \u201cdramatisations\u201d made with a \u201cspecific goal in mind\u201d and denied biting Ava, saying the mark was from a car seatbelt that \u201cpinched\u201d her.<\/p>\n Other people provided statements in support of Pacheco. There were claims that he had put out lines of cocaine on a bathroom counter within Ava\u2019s reach and left her unsupervised for hours. One woman admitted to having a threesome with him, and says she saw him pass out drunk. She said she was shocked when she discovered that Ava had been in the house all the time, at one point coming down the stairs to look for him. Another said she\u2019d seen him put a gun in his mouth and fire it at the ceiling.<\/p>\n In the book, he describes himself as a \u201ccranky, cynical, grubby cat motherfucker\u201d. We\u2019ve heard about the crankiness. Where does the cynicism come from? Spending too long on the east coast, he says. \u201cI think it\u2019s where innocence gets lost or weathered. It\u2019s like east coasters will have more of a mental toughness and their sense of humour is rougher around the edges. More aggressive. You bust each other\u2019s balls, that kind of thing.\u201d And what about the \u201cgrubby cat motherfucker?\u201d He bursts out laughing. \u201cThe phrase alone makes me giggle. I don\u2019t take myself very seriously. Whatever stress I\u2019ve had in life I\u2019ve tried to find a way of laughing through it. And that\u2019s where sometimes cynicism comes out \u2013 you think, I\u2019m just going to have a laugh at this stuff.\u201d What stuff? \u201cBeing accused of things you\u2019ve not done, right? That doesn\u2019t feel good to anybody. It certainly doesn\u2019t feel good when you\u2019re a celebrity and it\u2019s known to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Are you talking about the allegations in the media at the time of the divorce? \u201cYeah. Yeah.\u201d Is there any\u00a0truth in them? \u201cNo, and they happen all the time.\u00a0It\u2019s \u00a0all the salaciousness that happens out there. It\u2019s\u00a0clickbait, and it hurts my feelings and it dehumanises\u00a0people.\u201d<\/p>\n To be fair, I say, you do sound as if you were a party animal. He gives me another butter-wouldn\u2019t-melt look. I mention the stories of threesomes, drugs and boozing. \u201cThat\u2019s not really my style,\u201d he says. Really?<\/em> \u201cPeople say whatever.\u201d Then he starts to explain. \u201cLook, I live a carnival<\/em>-type life. I don\u2019t live a normal life. The amount of travel I have done, always living in a suitcase.\u201d And when he was home in LA, he says, he didn\u2019t go out because he was too well known, so he socialised at home. \u201cThe place in LA was where I was raising my child, where everyone learned to ride a bike and swim. I also had my music there. I had my meetings there. It\u00a0was my dating life. It was my club. It was my home. It was all the things that encompass someone\u2019s life. If\u00a0you meet a person and grab a pint, instead of meeting up at a pub, I\u2019d just do it at my house. It was like an open-door policy for all my family and friends. It was great for them. So that\u2019s not a normal home. Homes aren\u2019t usually like that or run like that way. So that\u2019s no longer.\u201d The way he describes it, it was both a nursery and a night club, and sometimes little distinction was made between the two.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the party lifestyle I was talking about, I say. \u201cYeah, yeah. Hosting. I just got tired of hosting. And all the clean-up. Hehehe! So by 2019 I was tired of all that. Covid came around and helped me bounce that all out. I just wanted to slow\u00a0down.\u201d<\/p>\n How did he feel when the allegations emerged? \u201cIt\u00a0doesn\u2019t matter to me what people say,\u201d he says before the question is fully out. \u201cThey\u2019re saying it for their own reasons and not for the right reasons or the truth. And I\u2019m used to that, because I\u2019m a public figure. I don\u2019t read people\u2019s reviews, I don\u2019t read people\u2019s comments. I don\u2019t care. That\u2019s not part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Ava clearly means so much to him. He now has joint custody with Pacheco, and the book is dedicated to his daughter (\u201cmy lifeforce \u2026 my everything, my only thing, my number one\u201d). I ask if he feared losing her in the custody battle. \u201cThat\u2019s just lawyers talking. That\u2019s lawyers arguing. The custody was easy.\u201d And then he says something surprising. \u201cHer mom and I get along very well, and we\u2019re in each other\u2019s lives. It\u2019s lovely.\u201d Wow, I say \u2013 I had no idea. \u201cYeah, yeah,\u201d he says, enthusiastically. I\u2019ve never read that before, I say, tell me about it. \u201cWell that\u2019s because it\u2019s no one\u2019s business. It\u2019s no one\u2019s<\/em> business.\u201d True, I say, but then you just read the horror stories. He softens. \u201cIt\u2019s great. She\u2019s got a new baby and she sends me beautiful pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span> Photograph: Sebastian Nevols\/The GuardianThat\u2019s where the accident\u2019s really shifted my focus. I can still go to work, but my primary focus is to give back and help in any way I can<\/p>\n Has he currently got a partner? \u201cNo, not at the moment.\u201d (Last year, it was reported that he was dating CC Mason, a fashion journalist 28 years his junior.) A\u00a0relationship is not a priority at the moment, he says. \u201cI\u2019m pretty focused on my daughter and the foundation for the kids.\u201d The foundation, also called RennerVation, provides support for at-risk children and those in foster care. Shortly before the accident, he made a Disney+ series about his project renovating old school buses to meet a community\u2019s needs, and out of that came the nonprofit foundation.<\/p>\n Rather than acting, this seems now to be his life\u2019s mission. \u201cThat\u2019s where the accident\u2019s really shifted my focus. I can still go to work, but my primary focus is to give back and help in any way I can. That\u2019s way more fulfilling than anything else I\u2019ve done, outside bringing up my own child. Being able to put a smile on these kids\u2019 faces and share that joy with them and share the growth, I can\u2019t think of anything more rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n He feels so much more at one with the world, he says. Take the book. The last thing the old Renner would have wanted to do is share such a traumatic experience. But the accident has led him into a different way of thinking, and now he couldn\u2019t be happier he\u2019s written the book. \u201cIt forced me to get out of my own way of being private and a recluse to share something.\u201d You\u2019ve been forced back into the real world? \u201cYeah. I\u2019ve never been more connected and more open and more vulnerable and more loving. And I\u2019ve never received more goodwill. That connection was buried deep, deep, deep in my soul, beforehand, but now it\u2019s at the forefront. It\u2019s all that matters to me.\u201d He takes a deep breath \u2013 long, leisurely and content. \u201cIt\u2019s an honour to be alive,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n <\/em>My Next Breath by Jeremy Renner is published by Simon & Schuster (\u00a322). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Six ribs broken in 14 places. Three breaks in the lower pelvis. Right and left ankle\u00a0broken. Left tibia broken. Left\u00a0wrist fractured. Left toes, three breaks. Right clavicle broken. Right shoulder blade cracked. Eye socket, jaw, mandible, all broken. Major\u00a0laceration back of head. Lung collapsed. Liver pierced from rib bone. The\u00a0inventory of Jeremy Renner\u2019s injuries, documented<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[3862,3861,859,2643,929,3865,3866,2337,3864,3863,417],"class_list":{"0":"post-10760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-14000lb","9":"tag-crushed","10":"tag-ive","11":"tag-jeremy","12":"tag-loving","13":"tag-nicer","14":"tag-open","15":"tag-person","16":"tag-renner","17":"tag-snowplough","18":"tag-vulnerable"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}