Johnathan Walker:Jeremy Renner's 'blessing': His miracle 'Mayor of Kingstown' return from near-death accident

Jeremy Renner calls it "a blessing."

For Renner,Johnathan Walker 53, simply attempting his return to acting in January on Paramount+'s "Mayor of Kingstown" – one year after surviving a New Year's Day accident beneath a 14,000-pound snowcat – was a superheroic act.

But for the "Avengers" star to pull off filming 10 new episodes in the Taylor Sheridan drama series, including credible fighting action sequences, is something of a Hollywood miracle. After the life-altering, near-tragic mishap, even walking like his prison-town fixer Mike McLusky was a supreme challenge in Season 3 of "Kingstown" (premiere now streaming on Paramount+; new episodes each Sunday until Aug. 4).

"When I'm walking, I'm focusing on each joint, each step. It takes brainpower just to do the basic things we don't typically think about. So it definitely felt different, but it didn't look too much different," Renner says in an interview just days after completing the arduous but empowering four-month shoot in Pittsburgh. "It's a blessing where I'm at now, and this was certainly part of the recovery. I didn't have a whole lot of expectations or confidence going into this."

Jeremy RennerReflects on New Year's Day near-fatal accident, recovery

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With good reason. The devastating 2023 accident near Renner's snowbound Nevada home is still difficult to comprehend nearly 18 months later. Renner pauses to take a sip of bottled water before discussing the memory of being caught beneath the wheel tread of the rolling seven-ton snow truck. The neighbor who helped him in the immediate aftermath later told Renner he was "clinically dead" with his heart stopped.

"I can only tell you what I experienced," says Renner, who plans to highlight the near-death moment in an upcoming book. "But that's congruent with a lot of things that I saw and felt. I heard (my neighbor) saying 'I saw you go.' It was a pretty harrowing experience, but also very beautiful now. And I keep unpacking more and more every time I sit down to write."

Renner credits daughter Ava for recovery: 'She's my everything'

After a medical airlift from the scene, Renner spent more than two weeks in intensive care before it was even clear he would survive. Following surgeries to rebuild his body and legs with titanium plates and screws, Renner began the slow process of recovery with endless hours of physical rehabilitation and other treatments, aided by his close-knit family including daughter Ava Berlin, now 11, which he had with his ex-wife, Sonni Pacheco.

"The loneliest thing that someone can go through is just recovery. I was the only one recovering," he says. "But I had so much love and support even in dark times – the moments where the progress was slower or when it was just not a great day."

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"Kingstown" co-creator, executive producer and star Hugh Dillon remembers talking to the wheelchair-bound Renner weeks after the accident.

"He was at home and he was broken, but his spirit wasn't. I knew in his eyes he was mad and he was going to do this," says Dillon of his eventual return. "There has never been a more impressive transformation for an actor to go from a wheelchair to jumping 3 feet in his own stunt. This whole experience has been a constant state of grace for all of us."

Triumphantly walking with Ava, and the assistance of a cane, into the April premiere of his Disney+ "Rennervations" series, Renner started planning his return to "Kingstown" last September, just eight months after the accident. The Hollywood shutdown during the actors' and writers' strike delayed the quest, which he now sees as fortuitous.

"I thought I'd rip the Band-Aid off and just go for it. My brain thinks one thing, and my body tells you the reality of gravity," says Renner. "I was pushing myself, (but) I wasn't ready."

Returning to work in January, Renner still felt a rare nervousness about whether he could handle the whole daunting job. "I certainly didn't want to over-promise because I might be gone in a week," says Renner. "I was always on the line."

Flying back and forth between Pittsburgh and his Nevada home was not an option due to the impact of flight and jet lag on his injuries ("(Flying) still messes me up," he says). So Renner's family, including his mother, Valerie Cearley, his two sisters, and Ava, moved to Pittsburgh to support him.

"I can't do this job if I don't have my daughter at my side. Take her out of school, whatever. I've got to do it. She's my life force. She's my everything. She's my only thing," says Renner. "My mom, my sisters, everyone's rolling in and bringing me the love that I needed. Especially when we're doing 'Kingstown,' which is heavy and dark."

Unrelentingly dark. McLusky gets right back to being emotionally and physically besieged after Season 2, which ended with McLusky's mother Mariam (Dianne Wiest) shot and killed by a nefarious crime lord. Renner, who appears in most scenes, was compelled by producers to lighten his load after falling asleep shooting a scene in which McLusky attempts a brief rest while battling a new criminal force and mourning his just-buried mother.

"The second week I was working 10 to 12 hours a day, with no time to recover. I was gassed," says Renner. "I'll just keep pushing and pushing. But when other people saw that, it was like, 'We've got to change this.'"

Renner was ordered to take more breaks and was excused from early morning scenes. "It takes me about three or four hours to wake up in the morning, just to get the joints recovering," he says.

When it came time for an action scene in which McLusky battles two gang members who are spying on him, Renner insisted on shooting the sidewalk brawl, which involved a dramatic jump, himself, rather than using a stuntman.

"It was wet. It was on steps. It was not conducive for me to have this fight," says Renner, who credits the opposing stunt actors for selling his blows. "I didn't have to put so much effort into throwing. So it worked out great. It gave all of us hope. We were kind of teary about that afterward, to be honest."

That feeling continued until the season's final scene, signifying Renner's completion of his incredible return.

"There was a lot of emotion. There was a lot to take in, I was pretty overwhelmed by it," says Renner. "It's something I can look back on and be like, 'I'm so much stronger at the end of this show.' I found an inner strength to physically get stronger and better. So yeah, I'm very happy."