#937 - Jeremy Renner - How To Overcome The Worst Pain Of Your Life

Summary

Modern Wisdom Episode #937: Jeremy Renner - How To Overcome The Worst Pain Of Your Life

In Episode #937 of Modern Wisdom, host Chris Williamson sits down with acclaimed actor Jeremy Renner to delve deep into Renner's harrowing personal experience of overcoming immense physical and emotional pain. This episode offers listeners profound insights into resilience, mental fortitude, and the transformative power of honest self-reflection.

1. Embracing Honesty and Openness

Jeremy Renner begins the conversation by addressing his straightforward approach to life and interactions. He emphasizes his commitment to genuine honesty, regardless of the situation's appropriateness.

Jeremy Renner [00:00]: "I just sort of explain kind of how I am in a really truthful, honest way. It's quite beautiful."

Renner discusses his natural inclination towards directness, noting that his openness has intensified due to the personal focus necessitated by his recovery journey.

Jeremy Renner [01:15]: "I've overcome obstacles. And not that I have a fake bow and arrow in a movie, you know, it's something much more real and something really quite tender and beautiful."

2. The Struggles of Public Life and Personal Anxiety

Renner shares his discomfort with large crowds and the intense scrutiny that comes with fame. He reveals how these factors contribute to his preference for genuine, meaningful conversations over superficial small talk.

Jeremy Renner [02:00]: "The more people in a room, the respect level for humanity kind of diminishes."

He expresses his disdain for chaotic environments, choosing instead to avoid situations that heighten his anxiety and hinder his authenticity.

3. The Life-Altering Accident

A pivotal moment in the discussion revolves around Renner's near-fatal accident involving a snowcat. He recounts the traumatic event with raw honesty, detailing the physical injuries and the intense pain he endured.

Jeremy Renner [13:10]: "And then I just have to step back up onto this machine or try to jump back in the cab. Leaping up and over three feet, these spinning tracks. And then, you know, I don't make it, and I get caught underneath this machine and it crushes me."
Chris Williamson [13:22]: "How long did that 45 minutes feel?"
Jeremy Renner [23:32]: "It was probably the first 25 that were the toughest... So the first half hour is rough and I died in that time because I got tired."
Jeremy Renner [27:34]: "You can't get a victim mentality in it. It's impossible."

4. Mental Fortitude and Pain Management

Renner delves into the critical role of mental resilience in his survival and recovery. He explains how practices like conscious breathing, mental reframing, and maintaining a focus on gratitude helped him navigate the excruciating pain and physical limitations post-accident.

Jeremy Renner [19:00]: "It's all in your control. And I just have to reprogram my brain from receiving those pain signals in that way."
Jeremy Renner [44:54]: "You have to believe that you're not alone and you can't do anything all by yourself. And that kept pushing me to keep going because I had a lot of help and that help I interpreted as love."

He articulates a philosophy where the mind and body collaborate to overcome adversity, emphasizing that pain is a construct meant to protect oneself, which can be reconfigured through mental strategies.

5. Recovery Modalities and Practices

Renner outlines the extensive recovery regimen that facilitated his healing. This includes physical therapy, hyperbaric chambers, red light therapy, peptides, and hormone replacement therapy. His disciplined approach and obsessive focus on recovery underscore his dedication to reclaiming his health.

Jeremy Renner [61:43]: "I became obsessed with recovery. It was my main focus and it was awesome because my life was freed from any other obligations."
Jeremy Renner [65:33]: "Heat, high heat, high vibrations great for pain."
Jeremy Renner [67:20]: "I love it because it does take a little bit more time, but I can do my emails, a cup of coffee."
Jeremy Renner [75:03]: "It's just to zoom out, to aggregate what actually matters here and then go back in."

6. Transformative Mindset Shift

A significant theme in the conversation is Renner's shift from self-focused recovery to a more altruistic outlook. By prioritizing his health, he found the strength to support his family and engage in philanthropic efforts, particularly through his foundation aimed at helping disadvantaged youth.

Jeremy Renner [78:53]: "I'm committed to my health and my wellness. It is a central part of my being and it has to be."
Jeremy Renner [84:17]: "It's something that I was, I can't just shove away anymore. It's just now become a central part of who I am. And I'm thankful for that."
Jeremy Renner [93:22]: "We're all going to have problems and obstacles. How good you are getting over those and through those, how fast and efficient you are with those, you're gonna have more joy in your life."

7. Reflections on Fame and Personal Growth

Renner reflects on his experience within the Avengers franchise, highlighting the supportive community and the ability to inspire young fans as key positive aspects of his career. He contrasts this with the isolation and lack of privacy that fame often brings.

Jeremy Renner [95:24]: "The foundation is probably second in line as far priority. That's a bigger scope of something."
Jeremy Renner [105:36]: "I'm committed to my health and my wellness. It is a central part of my being and it has to be."
Jeremy Renner [106:10]: "It is just always part of now, my DNA. I mean, it is for me and, you know, the importance of it be maybe less in public, which would be good."
Chris Williamson [104:09]: "Dude, you're awesome. I think being able to see somebody sort of publicly go through a challenge like this is really important. It really, really is."

8. Advice for Overcoming Personal Struggles

Towards the end of the episode, Renner offers heartfelt advice to listeners facing their own battles. He underscores the importance of community, self-care, and maintaining a positive mindset to navigate through pain and recovery.

Jeremy Renner [91:39]: "Find support. I mean, if you're a person alone in a hospital, you know, wow, you got nurses there, you got a team there. You're not alone because you have to believe that you're not alone and you can't do anything all by yourself."
Jeremy Renner [93:36]: "Focus on living the life first. Doing the life first that I want to live and then prioritizing what, that’s how I reprioritize."

Conclusion: A Testament to Human Resilience

Jeremy Renner's candid recounting of his accident and subsequent recovery serves as a powerful testament to the human spirit's capacity to overcome extreme adversity. Through unwavering honesty, disciplined recovery practices, and a shift towards altruism, Renner illustrates how one can transform personal pain into a source of strength and inspiration for others.

Key Takeaways:

• Honesty and Authenticity: Embracing genuine self-expression fosters deeper connections and personal clarity.
• Mental Fortitude: Cultivating resilience through mental strategies is crucial in overcoming physical and emotional pain.
• Recovery Practices: A disciplined and comprehensive approach to recovery can significantly enhance healing and personal growth.
• Altruism and Support Systems: Prioritizing health enables individuals to support and inspire those around them, creating a ripple effect of positivity.
• Mindset Shift: Transitioning from self-centered recovery to a broader, altruistic focus can lead to a more fulfilling and balanced life.

Jeremy Renner's journey, as shared on this episode of Modern Wisdom, provides invaluable lessons on navigating life's toughest challenges with grace, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to personal well-being.

Transcript

[Chris Williamson]

Are you sick of people asking you how you are?

[Jeremy Renner]

No, no, no. I mean, it's, It's. Well, there's a real honest answer that comes behind it. Right. Whether they're asking or not. You know, you get a real honest answer, and. And sometimes it's in the inopportune times. I remember doing a podcast and. But it was over Zoom, right? And the technical issues that were happening set it up and the thing and how. What mic to use and how to use this. I'm like, I was. I'm not the tech guy, and I was getting very frustrated and I was getting probably pretty hangry and like, the beginning of this podcast was probably pretty awful. I was quite, Quite a. But. But they asked you. Look, I'm sorry, I'm just going to work through this and a thing. I'm not giving a tech. And I, I just. I just have this real, realist, honest way to kind of live. So I'm not sick in the long, long way to answer this. Yeah. I'm not really sick of people asking how I am, because I just really do tell them, and if they do care about, you know, if it's. If it's about the recovery or if it's about just sort of my. My health or even mental health, you know, I, I don't care what, how they intended.

[Chris Williamson]

I'm.

[Jeremy Renner]

I, I just sort of explain kind of how I am in a really truthful, honest way. It's quite beautiful.

[Chris Williamson]

Have you always been like that?

[Jeremy Renner]

I've always been pretty. Pretty direct, but I don't think I'd be as open and revealing. I'm much more open, revealing because of having to focus on myself so much.

[Chris Williamson]

Why do you think that is? No time to obfuscate or sort of play the social Moray game.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, I was never good at that, man. I'm like, I. I'm in a crowd of people. I'll get anxiety and, you know, I'd have to, like, medicate with, like, you know, alcohol or something to sort of calm the nerves of being around so many people. I always think, if it's going to be a fire, so many people are going to die and people are going to get hurt. People are kind of terrible to each other in large crowds, they get. The more people in a room, the respect level for humanity kind of diminishes.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. The more humans they are, the less humane they are.

[Jeremy Renner]

Exactly. And I just refuse to be in that environment because I think it's disgusting, that behavior. I'm very affected by it and very Sensitive to it. So I just choose not to be in those environments.

[Chris Williamson]

It sounds like you've got, I don't know, a little bit of a nervous disposition. I think I would say that that's my kind of background too. Thinking, sometimes overthinking, looking for potential errors and issues and maybe being a little bit sensitive to the energy of what's going on around me.

[Jeremy Renner]

Definitely very sensitive. I always been an observer and quite insular in kind of my thoughts and things. I'm not a talker of small things. I can't really have any quite small trivial talk. I certainly can have a time until jokes and da, da, da. But most of the conversations I have are quite in depth or quite thoughtful or spiritual or psychological, emotionally driven, connective sort of tissue. Not just sort of like, let's just talk about Starbucks order. I mean, I just don't belong in that conversation. You know what I mean? But that's just me, right? So I just, you know, when I know those things about myself, I just try to put myself not in those situations. So I don't set myself up to fail.

[Chris Williamson]

Is there a. A challenge with wanting that level of openness, that level of emotional connection, vulnerability, but also having an additional level of scrutiny. Lots and lots of attention, press, people, caring. So these kind of two things that are a little bit at odds there.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. But not now. It used to be because the platform was to be a famous person talking about a movie or some work you did. This is not that right. I'm here today to talk about health and wellness and overcoming obstacles. And it's nothing more human than.

[Chris Williamson]

So it feels much more personal.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's more, I think, exciting because I think there. There are willing ears. I don't have to force. Hey, I'm here to tell you about this Avenger movie. And here I.

[Chris Williamson]

It was a lot of willing ears for the Avenger movie.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, there was a lot of willing ears, but I couldn't really talk about anything. And then, you know, you're kind of not. You're selling something, but you're kind of selling something. This. I'm not, man. I really am not. And it's. There's. I think I still am not sure how and why there is interest in something. And me dying, coming back, perhaps. You know, I don't really know what's interesting. I can tell you why it's interesting to me. When you know why it's interesting to me is that I'm not fucking dead. That's why it's really cool, man. I don't know for anybody else, they're still alive. They're all doing great. For me, I'm happy just to kind of keep moving through my days and getting better. And that's really exciting to me. That makes me feel quite alive.

[Chris Williamson]

Did it feel it sounds like one of the byproducts of movie stardom is a bit of constriction, then a level of constraint that must be day to day. Hello, sir. You need to be awake in the trailer at this time. We need to have you in hair and makeup by then. These are the lines, these are the scenes. This is. Sit in the seat. Hang on. Sorry. The DPs fucked it again. You're gonna have to sit back down for another 90 minutes while he tries to fix the lighting. Yeah, but then as you spread out into the public world as well, this is pretty carefully controlled. We need to be focused toward the movie. Like box office. Box office. Box office. In that way. Has this been a sort of break glass moment that's allowed you to sort of really step outside of yourself and not feel so constrained by just being the movie person?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and it's been that way for a minute, but now there's sort of a sort of byproduct of this change. The shift from, you know, being famous for xyz, for whatever it is for people, and then now it kind of wipes, wipes away, at least temporarily, that it's more about the man that I am. But I've overcome some obstacles. And not that I have a fake bow and arrow in a movie, you know, it's. It's something much more real and something really quite tender and beautiful. I get these amazing exchanges on the street. Instead of like the rude sort of in the middle of spaghetti dinner, you know, with my daughter taking selfies that I owe them. Apparently it's now like, well, glad you're here. You fought through something really amazing or whatever. It's like really thoughtful, amazing. Almost like sort of fortune cookie lines of like just beautiful sentiments that are connective and not like, I deserve a selfie. It's really flipped on its head. It's quite beautiful.

[Chris Williamson]

It's the you, not the character.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. And that's what makes this kind of exchange so great. I don't know. I have no idea what I'm going to talk about or have anything really to say, except I can have a conversation about real things. And if you have certain things, you know, you write down like, I think this is interesting, or let's talk about this. And I can do that because all I have to do is be me. And that's the coolest thing to be. But I don't typically get to do that because I'm out. Like you're saying, is it some other sort of. Kind of like when your life's planned out every 10 minutes and, you know, you get a bathroom break and I could. I can be me and go to the bathroom.

[Chris Williamson]

Your bathroom breaks are scheduled?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

You're kidding.

[Jeremy Renner]

Sometimes they're not.

[Chris Williamson]

Right. Okay. Just hold it in.

[Jeremy Renner]

Especially like on press tours and things like that. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty. It's pretty crazy. But, you know, do the things you love, man. That's it. Just do the things you love and don't worry about it.

[Chris Williamson]

I wonder how many. I wonder how many other guys and girls from your industry have this sort of odd cathartic daydream of something happening to them that kind of relinquishes them. I'm not.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, few of the guests.

[Chris Williamson]

What is it that you really admire about Jeremy's career? Well, you know, the Avengers thing was all right, but that bit where he got run over by the snowplow, that really was peak moment.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, it is. It really is, man. I mean, I highly recommend it. You know, at least if the outcome is my outcome.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep.

[Jeremy Renner]

I don't recommend it. Right. It's. It's excruciating. But the amount of gifts that came from such a thing, I think are, I guess to me. I mean, it's. It's all my. My life is and what filled with gratitude and love and. And truth and pure joy. It's just really clear. Like all the white noise is gone. And for someone to have that in their life, do you have to die to do it? No. It's part of the reason why I wrote the book. There's a lot of things I did learn and maybe other people can. I know there's a lot of people that struggle. I got some life hacks to help you with struggle and pain and pain management. All those type of things. Even is a famous person. There is some, like, probably. I think could be some envious things too, like you said from it. Because there is a lot of great things that came from such a horrific moment. But I'd again. I'd do it again in two seconds for the right reason. I'd probably not jump back on that machine this time. I don't know what I'd do.

[Chris Williamson]

What were you actually trying to do? You were trying to stop It. From hitting to crush.

[Jeremy Renner]

From crushing my nephew.

[Chris Williamson]

Nephew, yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

From this big, giant snow blade. And you're just going towards him, and he was at the truck that was perpendicular and just kind of trying to crush him.

[Chris Williamson]

So you jumped up to get cockpit.

[Jeremy Renner]

To try to stop it, right? Yeah, it knocked me off and it hit the wrong button. It knocked me off and it went forward on him. I'm off on. Off on the screen. So the machine's running on its own now. That's never happened. So. Yeah. Yeah. So I probably wouldn't jump back on the machine or maybe I would, you know.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

You know, you don't get the opportunity to think and reflect back on what you do. You know, you just do it or don't. And then. I'd rather be me than my nephew. You know what I mean? I don't want to deal with, like, the haunting images of on New Year's Day, my nephew split in half, you know?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. It's strange thinking about these people that come up to you and they see you, they see something that's really true to you. And I don't know, I wonder how many people, how many other people, even if it's not as performative as being an actor, have this sense of having to show up as someone. And when someone comes up and says, well done, there's a degree of hollowness to the praise because this is me, but it's me as a performer. It's not me.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right, right.

[Chris Williamson]

I'm aware that this is an artistic outlet for you. It's a calling that you have in life. You. Somebody's a musician, somebody's a presentation, a coach that goes into businesses. Somebody's a PT or whatever. You know, I really loved what you did with my wife's transformation for her wedding or whatever it is. Thank you so much. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, what about me?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, you just have to. Yeah. Look, if you. There's. There's great things that come with being famous and allows a lot of freedoms, a lot of more choices as for hopefully doing something you love to do, hopefully you're not famous for, like, being a serial killer or something. Right. But being, you know, in the. In the world, if you're a famous football player or whatever the heck it is, you just have to sort of take, take, you know. Yeah. That's going to be a feeling. You're not going to be seen and witnessed, but how. And how they see you. Like I like to be. I'm glad I'm seen as the at least they're picking out the right roles. Oh, I love you in this. I love you in the Hurt Locker. I love you in the town you're not picking out something from, you know, back in 94 or something. They're picking out the right ones. I'm like, good. I'm glad you like me for those ones. I'm happy about those movies too. And, yeah, there's. There's. I don't take emptiness with it. Like, I look at it from. Like, it's. It's. You have to sort of filter through this is what they know you as. You know what I mean? And not. And then you go at the end of the day and there's too much of it. You're like, okay, look, I just need to. I can only have much tolerance to deal with. Okay? I'm still a human being. I can't. I'm just not this cardboard cut out of me. Right. That people know me as. So that's why, you know, I just. But I make decisions about that, like, I'll stay home more often or I have. Unless I have a lot of tolerance in my tank of tolerance to, like. So I can emotionally accept this and have my time and I'm touched and pulled and fingered and all sorts of weird things happen. Is that you gotta have enough tolerance.

[Chris Williamson]

To be fingered.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. To be fingered. Now, I don't get. Yeah, it's not so bad now. I think people look at me or I feel they look at me with more fragility. So they don't come in, like, throw me around or, like, smash me around a bit and pull me. It feels a little different now, which is. Which is great. I'm great. I'm great.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Jeremy Renner]

Happy about that.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. So the kind of elephant in the room, I guess. And I didn't know that you'd gone through your accident. I didn't know that that had happened. I was like, you know. Yeah. Jeremy must say he did the. And then the series, and then the Avengers finished, and then maybe that come back. There was a series for that and. Oh, yeah. Just, you know, you kind of weren't there and then you were. So if you hadn't seen this bit in between, if you'd just been watching, like, the wrong kind of headlines.

[Jeremy Renner]

Right, right.

[Chris Williamson]

Nothing would have occurred.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

So for the people that sort of weren't aware of what happened, there's something to do with the snowplow. Can you give the overview?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, the overview. It's a, well, review. It was hard enough to recount to Write the book, you know, now I could write the trailer. Okay. So. And the settings in Lake Tahoe. And it's New Year's, and we always have my family in New Year's. And we were snowed in for a few days, Sort of Armageddon. Snowmageddon we called it, type of thing. So we had no power, no electricity or nothing, and we were having a great time. But New Year's Day, it was gonna be sunny, so I had to clear the driveway so we can get out and get some fresh air and that type of thing. And in the mountains, you know, It's. You're at 8,000ft elevation, you get a ton of snow. So we have, like, probably 10, 12ft of snow. So that's like sand. You know, you got to move this stuff to kind of get it out when you're supposed to go skiing. And all this stuff ends up. I'm taking the snow cap, which is used snow cat. If you don't know what it is, it's like a. Like a tank. It moves on the Snow. It's about £16,000 wet, and it's got a big shovel in the front of it and usually drags behind it, you know, stuff. But it's like a tank, and it turns like a tank or a skid steer. So it's pretty nimble. And it floats on the snow because it has these steel tracks and they're wide. So kind of like snowshoes, if you will. Right. So you don't sink in it. But. Which is great for that. But we took it up to the end of the driveway, which is about half mile long. We were taking cars that were stuck in the snow and things that were buried. You don't even know what's underneath all that snow, so you have to be very careful. So we're dragging all this stuff out of there. So we have a driveway, so we have access to. Maybe we'll get food supplies, something, anything. Right. So we take this snowcat and drag all this stuff out. The final one was my truck, and we got it to. To the top of the. The mountain where there was a plowed driveway and where it's hard and we can actually can maneuver a bit better. And then my nephew just takes the help of my nephew Alex, and so. And we've done this a thousand times. I mean, it's. This is like mowing the lawn for us up there in the mountains. It was just a. We're on this. It's kind of a slope, and it was very icy, and we were sliding, and I didn't like that. I was sliding towards him as he was trying to unhook a chain from this giant machine. And so I turned it around to try to talk to him and couldn't see him, and I was sliding towards him, so I backed up. But again, you have to understand this machine. You have to see this machine to understand. But you have to step on these giant tracks, the things that roll and move to get in and out of the machine. Anyway, there's not.

[Chris Williamson]

There's no little ladder.

[Jeremy Renner]

There's no ladder. There's no nothing. You just have to jump onto the giant metal tracks and then you jump into the cab to start driving this thing. Right. Kind of a design flaw, if you ask me, because it's really unsteady. Anyway, it's not really a pedestrian type of vehicle. This is a commercial for. Commercial vehicle for ski slopes. Right, right.

[Chris Williamson]

Typically, people aren't hopping in, hopping out, and hooking up, whatever. It's a shift.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, exactly. And so it's just one of those things. I have to step out to try to talk to him, to hear him and all these things, at any rate. And there's a little toggle switch on the steering column. That's what'll move it forwards and backwards and put it in neutral. And I just keep going backwards just so I don't slide into him because I can't really see him. And then in doing so, I'm stepping on the tracks, hit the button wrong. It threw me off. And now the machine's rushing towards him. I have no idea. I know he's within. Between the truck and that's 10ft away. I get up as quick as I can, and I just quickly jump back on this machine or try to jump back in the cab. Leaping up and over three feet, these spinning tracks. And then, you know, I don't make it, and I get caught underneath this machine and it crushes me, and it rolls over like a tank would run over a log. Just, you know, doesn't think. Does it? And. And it didn't crush my nephew, which is great.

[Chris Williamson]

But that would have been a real double whammy.

[Jeremy Renner]

Oh, yeah. That would have been terrible. Yeah. I mean, it's. Yeah, yeah. Wouldn't my body slow it down a little bit? Probably. Probably not. Probably not. This thing's. This thing will climb up a tree. This thing. It's. It's gnarly. The power of this machine is. Is quite insane. It's impressive. You need it. It's the only thing that'll kind of operate in the, that kind of snow, that kind of just kind of crazy conditions. And so at any rate, you can, you can edit this the way you want, but then at the end of the I break like 38 bones. My skull cracks open and my eyeball comes out. I can see my eyeball with my other eye. I can't breathe. I'm awake the whole time during this thing and I have to survive for 45 minutes on the ice till I get hella lifted out of there. And a lot of the book is about, tells you about that experience because there's a lot of things as a death and coming back and there's a lot, there's a lot of mindset stuff, a lot of fortitude, mental acuity is what got me through physical. I mean there's a lot of things that got me through but the power of the mind and the body is wonderfully responsive to your thoughts, to heal itself, to hurt itself, whatever. But it's pretty, pretty amazing what the mind can do.

[Chris Williamson]

Did you have a practice meditation? Did you have this prior?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

Right. Okay. How do you think this situation would have been different or how well do you think that your practices and advance contributed?

[Jeremy Renner]

It's hard, it's hard to know. I mean that's why I had to reflect. That's one thing was very cathartic about this book, is just reflecting back on what prepared me for that situation. I've been in not near death experience situations before, but I've been in like high adrenaline situations. How do you react?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

Which is how do you react to like things that, you know, car crash or something, something gets hit on the freeway and what do you do? Or you either react or, you know, you go into shock or how people deal with the flow of adrenaline rush through their body. Right. And I've always been challenged and I've always come out clear headed in all those adrenaline rush situations. So it's hard to know because that's how I've always been. I like roller coasters, but I'm not like a thrill junkie really. Right. I'm not like an adrenaline junkie. But it's just, I just know how my mind reacts in those situations. I'm always very, very clear headed about it and an actionable person. So that helped. And then you know, there was like breathing. Breathing was like you said, meditation. Well, I was in Lamaze class when I was 12 years old when my mom was pregnant, so. And that all Lamaze is, is preparation for birthing a child. Mitigating you know, pain. Managing your pain as you, you know, is very, very painful for a woman as she's giving birth. So you use these short breasts and all these sort of things. Mentally feeding ice chips and keeping their attention away from their cervix. Right. And Right. And do all these sort of things. I Learned that at 12. I didn't know that that was going to save my life on the ice as I got ran over by a snow cat. Right. But that was huge in it. That's all I was trying to do. Look, if you can't breathe, what are you going to do? Look for your next breath. You need to breathe. I saw my eye. I worry about that later. I saw my twisted legs. I'll worry about that later. That'll hurt. Didn't. Then I have to find my next breath or this is all. I'm a goner. Right. Everything will start failing. I'll lose consciousness, my organs will fail. I'm dead. So, you know. Yeah. There's a lot of things I think prepared me, but I can only reflect. I can't say for certainty. Right. How could we? But yeah, I think there were a lot of things that prepared me, but it was definitely the mental thing. Through anything, you know, even into the recovery, it's like the only thing you have control of is your perception of something that is it. You think you could control your body, you think you control something, but it starts with your brain and your mind and your spirit of what you believe in. How you see something is all in your control. And I'm not like the half glass, half FMT kind of dude, Right. But it's a version of that. I could have made it. I could have whined and complained and like, oh, God, I'm never going to work again as an actor. None of that. I didn't care about any of that. Right. That had no value to me. The value was the mental acuity to get through, to find my next breath, to zoom out so big and so wide. And I keep my perspective there. I live in a very comfortable, loving, pure life with a where I oversimplify the simplicity of life, because it is just that simple.

[Chris Williamson]

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[Jeremy Renner]

Mm. Wow. It was probably the first 25 that were the toughest because I don't think, I don't think an EMT or fire department can get there until like their first half hour. So the first half hour is rough and I died in that time because I got tired. I just got. Because doing the equivalent of breathing that we all don't even think about breathing. It's not even conscious. Right. It's just sort of reflexive. It just happens in our body. But I had to like work and I was like doing like a one arm push up. It took every piece of physical energy I could do just to exhale a little bit so I can get a little bit more back in. I was suffocating.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, it felt like, it felt like drowning.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, in a way. Yeah. Yeah. I was still getting air. You can't do that in the water. But I was, it was, I was like a boa constrictor kind of feeling like it just squeezes more. You suck, blow out air. It's squeezing you. And it's because my whole rib cage, my shoulder, all this side was just collapsed on my lung that was already collapsed instead of suffocating myself. So I got. Once I had my nephew lift my arm up enough to lift my rib cage off my lung. I could get a little bit more air and it wasn't like suffocating so much. So I can. It was still excruciating but to breathe was quite, quite the effort. And if, if you just to take deep breaths for a minute. You. You feel lightheaded, you might pass out. But like, this is just. It's just. It was just exhausting. And with each exhalation and then inhalation, it was just like so did feel long. But I don't know. I can't answer that. It was just like I was waiting for my next breath and it was never sure was going to happen, but I was going to will it to happen.

[Chris Williamson]

We got tied and I got tired.

[Jeremy Renner]

And that's, you know, that's when I just. Everything just started slowing. It actually probably. I guess maybe it felt like a long time because it start. Things started to get slow and consciousness was. The neighbors got here. By this point, a lot of things transpired was me and my two neighbors I never met and my. My nephew Alex there for the first half hour. They're on the phone call with 91 1, whatever and trying to. They're trying to do everything they can to keep me alive. And I just got tired and that's when I was gone and then came back and I was pissed about it. I saw my eyeball again. I'm like, oh, because it was so great. I'm like, oh, it was so great. I was having such a good time because I was going. Because I did sort of regulate breathing. And then it just started to slow. The heart rate started to slow. It was like 18 beats per minute. It wasn't just sort of like I just croaked, right? Just kind of. It was just smoothly into it gently away. Just gently away. And like later, everyone. It was great. And then something brought me back.

[Chris Williamson]

Psych.

[Jeremy Renner]

God damn it. And I saw my eyeball again. Like, ah, dude, I'm in this busted body. I'm in this busted body again. I'm like, all right, here we go. Just get back into it.

[Chris Williamson]

So it wasn't. No one was. I mean, CPR would have.

[Jeremy Renner]

Not yet. No, no, no, no. It wasn't for very long. It was only like, probably, you know, my neighbor because it just happened to my neighbor the day before when she saw her uncle die.

[Chris Williamson]

What?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Or, yeah, I think it was her uncle or that wasn't her brother. I think it was her uncle. And it just happened to her. Then she. And she happened to be. Worked in the medical field anyway, so it's kind of a great thing having kind of a nurse be your neighbor. But. Yeah, she said you're. Yeah, I saw. I saw you go and. Yeah, because all your face turns all these colors and it's like a Lizard or chameleon or something at any rate. So I don't think it was gone for very long. But it doesn't really matter, I suppose. I guess not long. Not dead enough to have, you know, brain dead, you know, or whatever. I don't know. Maybe I'm brain dead now.

[Chris Williamson]

What does. I've always, I've always wondered this. What does looking at your own eye look like?

[Jeremy Renner]

You know, it's. It's one of those. It's a queer situation, you know, just like it's looking at your foot facing the wrong direction. And then your other leg, that's not a joint. It was broken, shattered like there's twisted all like a pretzel. I knew that was supposed to hurt.

[Chris Williamson]

Did it?

[Jeremy Renner]

No, it'll hurt later. I'll worry about that problem later. And just like the eye, I'm like, ah, man. And I rolled my face on it. It's like, at least me put that thing on ice because I was like laying on the icy asphalt. So let me ice that thing. You know, I thought about that, dude, right? Yeah. I said, it is funny, right? But that's what I thought about. I'm like, oh, let me put that on. I said. And I had my nephew lift my arm just so I can breathe. There was like conscious. My hyper, hyper focused conscious stuff was to survive.

[Chris Williamson]

So you had love.

[Jeremy Renner]

And I went through every checklist of my body. I have a strong, strong awareness of my body as well as an athlete, as a stunt performer, also as an actor, because it is my instrument to even act. So I'm very, very aware of my body, how it works, all the things. So to my knowledge, I don't know all the things, but at least I know the basics of how my body should operate. So I'm just constantly going through like, you know, what it really initially felt like for my breathing was like when you get, when you lose your wind, you get kicked in the stomach or punched in the stomach. It's that suffocating, trying to find your breath, right? It's what it sounds like on the 9:1 college.

[Chris Williamson]

It's like just, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

But it's just you can't get air in, right? It's like you're cramping in your diaphragm. So I kept like, if I get this cramp out of my diaphragm, I can get a deep breath in. I mean, this is never coming. But I keep telling myself, as long as let me relax, let me relax. Let me see if I can just get this the Immediate is get that air in. If you're not getting air in, your immediate thing you need in your life is air in. Right. Pretty obvious. So start there. So I'm just trying to work through that and getting my body to be in a place so I can get air in. And eventually it got to that place where he had to hold it in a very specific way. My arm up in a specific weight so I can breathe. I could start regulating the painful way to. Now I. The new way I breathe, the one arm pushup breathing type of thing. A lot of effort and yeah, it's that. But all the mental part of that is the main thing that got me through initially, that sort of mental focus. No one was going to help me breathe, no matter who was there, who could have done it or not. Nobody could have. I was the only one that was going to be able to make myself breathe. And any way possible. No one knew exactly what was wrong or how sudden. I had to. I was kind of flattened, my head's crushed, you know, there's blood everywhere. So they're thinking a whole lot of different things. I'm like, fuck all y'all. I just need to breathe in so I could breathe out. I'd even use expletives to help me laugh.

[Chris Williamson]

Didn't sweat once.

[Jeremy Renner]

Oh, I see. I said I had all these. Yeah, it was hookers, whores and hamburgers that I would scream out because the huffing of the H sound would make me laugh. Right. I had to do that to get air out so I can stuck air and also have a laugh. That's my eyeball. That's my twisted ass. Legs. Yeah, I already died. What else needs to happen? This is my body. It's my body. I'm owning it. So those are the sense of humor I even had. If you can. In that horrifying, you know, drawn out.

[Chris Williamson]

45 minutes, you know, and then you get it.

[Jeremy Renner]

There's. There's no. There's no like rule book. There's no like directions and like how to. How to overcome something like that.

[Chris Williamson]

Right.

[Jeremy Renner]

We're not taught how to do anything.

[Chris Williamson]

You didn't have a blueprint.

[Jeremy Renner]

You just do what you can do. What do you got? And every. Say yes to everything. Do whatever works. Right.

[Chris Williamson]

It's fascinating how much mental clarity you had.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. You had to. Had to. I was dead. If I passed out, I would have been dead. I wouldn't be sitting here, I'd be dead. You're too far. High up in the mountains. No one could have gotten to me. Oh, of course.

[Chris Williamson]

You're so high up in the mountains that even breathing normally, I imagine, is.

[Jeremy Renner]

A little bit more difficult than most normal people. Yeah. 8,000ft. Yeah. So maybe my body's also prepared for it. I also have high amounts of oxygen in my body because I do work on that stuff. But there's no. One thing. But the mental part of it was the one thing that did get me through at least to the next exhalation. And then that got me. It bought some time. You know, I came back for whatever reason, and then the paramedics got there shortly after. And then they had to, you know, do the crazy thing in your chest. They stabbed your chest like it's some movie or something.

[Chris Williamson]

And what do they. They're trying to re. Inflate the lung.

[Jeremy Renner]

Either that or release pressure.

[Chris Williamson]

Right.

[Jeremy Renner]

Don't ask me. I'm not. And I didn't go into the details of it.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep.

[Jeremy Renner]

Um, even after the fact, I had to worry about other things than the scar on my chest. I could care. Couldn't care.

[Chris Williamson]

But they come in, it's the guy that's choking on something, and they put.

[Jeremy Renner]

The pan in the neck type pretty much like that.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

And like, oh my God, that happened. Right, right. But yeah, then they could also get, you know, fentanyl and all that stuff. India, and. And sort of mitigate the pain.

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, that's fun.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's when things got a little. When they were. When they started cutting my close off. I'm like, I relinquish my duties.

[Chris Williamson]

Now I'm in someone else's.

[Jeremy Renner]

Give my body to you because I did the best I could. But now like, you know, so I think they're already had me regulating my breathing or using a pump to kind of regulate the breathing a bit more so I didn't have to like consciously fight for every breath. So I just said, I give my body up, I'm done. And I just let them go for it and thank God for them. And one was my friend or a friend of my friend, one of my best friends. He was a firefighter. He's a fire. He just retired. And then the guy that jabbed me and stuff, he had to call my buddy and be. Look, Renner just got hella lifted out of here. Sorry. We did the best we could. Dude, you get that phone call? It's brutal, man. So brutal that my friend had to get that phone call. But at any rate, all these little, little moments that come keep floating back, talking about it, you know, Such great. They're all. It all represents love to me. You know, if I get. If I catch any feelings, if I. I don't get triggered with rage. I don't get triggered with disappointment or sadness ever. It's a trigger with an overwhelming sense of love, gratitude. Something I hope never goes away. I can't imagine it will.

[Chris Williamson]

Kind of like alchemy.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

To take something like that and to see all of the love that came pouring back in.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. I mean it's. Which. It's the ultimate thing that got me through. It's the insulin thing you take with you and you die is the love. Such a beautiful, beautiful space. Place in a loving space.

[Chris Williamson]

And then you come back around in the icu, presumably.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was pretty much. I was, yeah. They had to put me in a coma and get to work. There's a lot of life saving stuff that I do initially. Don't know about any of those things. Even to this day, I don't know all the things that they had to do. Probably don't care. Want to know, you know, you have to move my ball eyeball back in. I know there's duct tape on my eye because again, whatever works, dude. I mean, what's in my body is just hammers and hammered screws and a pipe that they've hammered through my knee to down here and screws and plates and it's very like sort of just carpentry work. So putting duct tape on my face to hold my eyeball back in, you know, is just as, you know, it's just how you do it.

[Chris Williamson]

You gotta use what you've got.

[Jeremy Renner]

You use what you got. And that's what they had, that's what we did. And that's what worked. My eyes, my vision in my left eye is better than my right eye now.

[Chris Williamson]

You're kidding.

[Jeremy Renner]

It's better? Yeah. It's amazing. I don't recommend it.

[Chris Williamson]

So what I. What I'm interested in is when. And you've sort of hinted at this already. When the pain starts to kick in.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Well, that was the initial from all the. Every. Every synapse is firing. Every. Every thing in your brain is lit up because when you get crushed, like everything was. I didn't never experienced a feeling like that in my life. It's like a. It's like if you hit a hammer on your thumb, you're like, oh, motherfucker. But like on every inch of your body, it's like, what is going on? There's so much information you don't know what to pay attention to. So that was very confusing. The pain was everywhere, in everything. Even, like, in your spirit. Everything was. You. You don't know what was going on. So it's very confusing. It was very bright, a lot of flashing, you know, because it went. There's like a lightning strike that happened when my skull cracked and the eye came out. So weird that I'm talking about this.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep. When my skull cracked.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, because I don't look like it happened, right.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep, yep.

[Jeremy Renner]

There's like a lightning strike and, you know, the. You know, you start messing with. I don't know. It was such an overload. Felt like it was like, you know, you got to turn off the power because there's an overload of information, overload of pain. All your nerve endings are, like, on fire. Like, it was like fiery hot lava. It was like all these things were happening, so. And again, the worst part of it is like you got stepped on by an elephant and you can't breathe. That's what you just can't breathe. That was the worst of it. It's like, who cares about the rest of this stuff? I mean, all of it hurt, but I don't even know what that is anymore. Like, pain. Pain became my bitch a long time ago.

[Chris Williamson]

How so?

[Jeremy Renner]

It's because it's all a construct in your mind anyway. It's your body's way of saying, hey, it's trying to preserve itself. Your body tries to preserve itself by saying, there's pain. Oh, that's hot. Don't touch it. Or this is that. Don't do this. Try this. Right. So again, mind you, this is not during the accident. This is after the accident. And I started to deal with pain in a different way. And I wrote a whole chapter on it called the agreement about having. You can renew pathways. You can change them for your brain. How I receive pain is different. How I received it before. I can still stub my toe and ow, Motherfucker. Yes, right. But I understand what it means, what the body's really trying to tell me. Like, when the body gets a break, it instantly swells, tries to create its own cast and do all these sorts of things to protect itself. The body just tries to preserve itself. It's a miracle what the body does. It's fantastic. If you are an alliance and what the body's trying to do, and the body realizes, ah, you are listening to me. Okay, I won't bother you so much anymore. And that's where we came to the agreement of like you can't tell me that's painful anymore because that's a metal piece of metal now you're not even a bone, you can say it's broken. So I have to reprogram my brain from receiving those pain signals in that way. And it takes a time. It takes about 28 days to really, really reprogram.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. Explain this 28 day cycle.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, it's like a lot of cycles, like from a menstrual cycle, a moon cycle, human patterns and behaviors, a lot of toxicities to leave your body take around those times. But it's just something about that 28 days seems to be something congruent. A lot of different versions of our lives. And with patterns to really create a positive pattern or take a negative pattern to a positive pattern. It's like 28 days and then you don't have to think about it. It's not a conscious thought anym. You don't have to be begrudged to stretch every morning. You're just stretching every morning. After 28 days, essentially it doesn't have to even be that long. It could take be less. But to. It's all within your brain and the power within your brain and your mind. And it takes fortitude, it takes trust and faith and a whole lot of other bag of goodies that you can't be weak in spirit. You cannot. You have to be. If you don't believe it, then no one's going to believe it. Kind of attitude. It's not going to get done if you're not going to do it. You have to do it and believe it. And a lot of that came through because I had to walk on my leg. And my leg had a spiral fracture, spun around, it was shattered. And so they had to hammer a big piece of titanium in and just plates and screws and plates and screws. And he said, you're gonna have to walk on this thing, otherwise it's gonna be pretty much just like a log stiff thing. I'm like, all right.

[Chris Williamson]

To keep it mobile.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. To move it. All the scar tissue. Right. I have to as you know, right. You gotta keep this thing rocking and moving. So I got the okay from the doctor, like I have to move this thing, otherwise it's gonna be just a club leg. So I started doing it and my body is screaming at me, ow, ow. I stepped down, it's broken. My body's telling me. I'm like, no, it's not. So I started yelling at my foot and my leg, I'm like, look, motherfucker, sorry about my language, but I'm just like, look, we got to work this out. The doc says you're not broken because you're a piece of metal now. Like, I'm literally talking to it. Like, it's a. Like, my appendage in my body is like a. Like a. Like a scorned lover or something. Or like a. Like a bad dog.

[Chris Williamson]

Baldy dog.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, what are you doing? Why would you cheat on me? You know what I mean? You're betraying me, essentially. It's such a betrayal. And so to be so crazy enough to like, to talk about my appendage as a separate thing, you know, it was opened up to this idea that I have to really change. I have to change it, because I know with all the things I'm telling you, I knew before. I just, like, I have to really work this out. I'm literally arguing with my leg every day. I'm arguing with my leg many times a day. Anytime I go, I have to go move it, get blood flow through it. So for blood clots that. Right. Scar tissue, it's all this stuff. So otherwise, I'm threatening, dude, I'm gonna lop you off. I'm gonna chop you off. I'm gonna get a wooden peg. I'm gonna get a parrot and an eye patch and go live a pirate life. Either do it or don't. Like, I'm screaming, right? I'm saying it like. I'm saying it now. Like, no joke, but saying with that intensity and that belief, dude, because I did also was okay with living the pirate life, dude. I was totally okay with it. I was just happy I was alive. I didn't care about acting again. I'm just happy to see my family there with me, all the people I love around with me. I didn't care about what the future held for my body in that sense. You know what I mean? Or I was willing to do it. So I'm threatening my leg. I'm gonna chop it off. I mean, it's like. It's the most insane thing ever. And I know I'm. I know that as I'm saying it. And I reflect back on it sometimes at night, and I'm like, dude, that was a good talk we had. That's good talk. It's pretty. It's a lonely business recovery, right? When you're in a bed alone, you're the only one recovering. No matter how many doctors you got, how many people love you giving you tea, whatever the heck it is, all that's amazing. But you're the only one that can make you get better. And that's it, man. And me, and me and my leg were partners of crime at the time. And yeah, I'm talking to curtains, I'm talking all sorts of things and it's quite lonely space. But it was a thing that helped me reprogram the neural pathways and how I received pain. And it took about 28 days, it took about a month of me yelling at my leg as I'm doing physical therapy. I'm doing it every day. I did it as soon as I got home. I was in two ICUs for six days a piece as soon as I got home because I was breaking out of them every day. Get me home, get me home so I can sleep. And as soon as I got home, I'm doing physical therapy. You know how painful it is, I don't care. So I got on it real quick. And so, so after doing that, this having this agreement with my leg, all the other things like my ribs and all that stuff kind of fell into place much better than I anticipated. My lungs were like plastic suitcases for all the goop and things to kind of come out of it. Blood and all this like stuff. It's so weird. And it was quite a hot mess. But it was the leg that was really quite the issue because it was the physical therapy part of it. And that's where I focused all my energy. And then the rest of the body just kind of fell into place. It's like a focus on one bad dog that was pooping on my pillow or something. Right. I'll just focus on the leg. And then pain became just something that I can manage because I know my body sends signals to my brain, but it doesn't mean I have to receive it the same way.

[Chris Williamson]

What's your advice to somebody who's currently dealing with pain?

[Jeremy Renner]

You know, I'm not going to say you have to yell at the thing. I think getting an understanding of it, I think there are other ways. You know, I think modern medicine is fantastic for the short term, but for long term and chronic pain, I think there's got to be other ways. I deal with it all the time, but I certainly don't take pills. I do injections of peptides, amino acids, vitamins, maybe some natural anti inflammatories, things like that. I think everybody's got to deal with inflammation. I think there's a lot of great science that's coming out I get a lot of access to people that have been dealing with it for a long time and also been doing it for a long time. But none of that matters. What matters is what your body says. I listen to my body. My body tells me what it needs and I listen to it. I pay attention. And I also talk the fuck off. Like, no joke. It's a part of me. It is what I am, but it is just my spirit living in this vessel. So I'm going to take care of it the best I can. So I'm going to listen to it and it's going to listen to me. And it does. And that agreement I have with my body gets me through every day.

[Chris Williamson]

How do you know when to listen to it and when to tell it to off.

[Jeremy Renner]

It starts to scream at me a bit.

[Chris Williamson]

The volume that it.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, it gets a little louder. Or it's. It's actually not even that. It's more. It's repetitive in nature. Not just something like. It's not just an afternoon or a stiff morning, it's just a fleet. It's just like, oh, this has been a week of this repetitive thing. I'm like, all right, I gotta. I gotta help my body out here. I'm not doing something right. I'm doing something wrong. Wrong. I'm putting something in my body or I'm not that it's something else. Right. The body, like if you have an injury, usually some other part of your body overcompensates and that kind of stuff. So you have to really kind of watch. Watch the whole thing.

[Chris Williamson]

We'll get back to talking in one second, but first, this episode is brought to you by AG1. I've been drinking AG1 every morning for years now, and it just got even better. AG1 Next Gen keeps the same simplicity. One scoop once per day, but now comes with four clinical trials backing it. In those trials, AG1 Next Gen was clinically shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels within three months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in healthy adults. Basically, they've upgraded the formula with better probiotics, more bioavailable nutrients, and clinical validation. AG1 genuinely care about holistic health, which is why I've got my mom to take it, my dad to take it, and tons of my friends too. And it's why I put it inside of my body every single day. And if I found something better, I'd switch, but I haven't, which is why I still use it. Plus, if you're still unsure, they've got a 90 day money back guarantee. So you can buy it and try it every single day for three full months and if you don't like it, they will give you your money back for the lot. Right now you can get a free year's supply vitamin D, 3K2 and 5 free AG1 travel packs and that 90 day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drink ag1.com/modern wisdom. That's drink ag1.com modern wisdom. Just sink into the. That reframing that mental reframing around pain a little bit more for me.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

And somebody I've again not run over by a snowcat. Full Achilles detachment.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. Get out of here.

[Chris Williamson]

That was a motherfucker. Yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, here's the thing. See any singular to any one of those. It's way worse than getting ran over by the snow cat because there's only, there's only. Yeah. There's only one thing and it's, it's, it's. I was tested to my limits, to my death. So nothing else can. I don't pop both my Achilles tendons right now, like, ah, whatever. I'll limp out of here or waddle out.

[Chris Williamson]

Right. Because the worst thing that's happened to you is the worst thing.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. It's like, all right, this is gonna be a terrible year. Yeah, I didn't know that already, but you know, we'll reattach. They probably do in six months now they go the Aaron Rodgers machine. They can do like.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Jeremy Renner]

You know.

[Chris Williamson]

But my point being with that, for me, I resonate an awful lot with the loneliness, I think.

[Jeremy Renner]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

I think this is one of them. One of the things I really want to get an insight.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

Patience from around you. Yeah. The, the role of patience and.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

How you deal with loneliness, how you remain sort of mental fortitude.

[Jeremy Renner]

Interesting.

[Chris Williamson]

And you sink into that.

[Jeremy Renner]

That's interesting, I think. Yeah. Especially for you. Talk about, you know, the Achilles tendon because it is such a long ongoing thing and then 12 month recovery.

[Chris Williamson]

Man. It's a real injury.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, it's a real damn injury, dude. It's. And it's like no joke, like you could break any bone and you're done in a month and people aren't really that conscious of it and. Because usually you're just playing sports or you're just getting out of bed and it could pop. Right. It happened anywhere. Usually you're doing some kind of athletic. Just playing pickleball.

[Chris Williamson]

And mine was cricket which is a much more British way to do it.

[Jeremy Renner]

But yeah, either way, usually it's not a sexy way to have such a gnarly injury. But anyway, so, so people aren't caring like people care a lot about my injuries because they're very aware of what happened. Like oh yeah, you're playing cricket, you know, whatever. That kind of made me make fun of you for it. But there is a real loneliness in, in, in that. So I gamify recovery, I gamify my pain. I gamify that loneliness meaning I set, set goals. I, I daily goals was always like as long as I'm better than I was the day before and I don't, it doesn't have to be a high standard. It's like I move my elbow an inch more than I can move it the day before victory. Right. So at least it's progress. It's this then the setbacks are fewer because you don't set such a crazy high goal. I'm going to start, I'm going to run a 4, 5, 40 at the end of the year. You know, come on then you're going to, you set yourself up for disappointment. But so to gamify things and give myself confidence and self confidence in my loneliness is like getting better. I'd always push myself Even after the PT leaves, I'm doing stuff on my own. It's a 24 hour job. It's a 24 hour job as long as I get my good sleep. Then the rest of it's like what am I putting in my body and how do I get better every day And I hit higher goals and I find ways to heal my family in me getting better. That helped immensely. I can remove myself out of the equation of my pain and my recovery because I'm getting better, to heal my family. If I get better, my family gets better. I'm not getting better. Even for me, that was a huge perspective that I had. As soon as I woke up from the coma. I apologized that I was in the accident. I said I was sorry and I promised my daughter, if you wait for me, I'll get better. It was like I relieved myself of the duties of me wanting to get better for me, I was getting better for them, to heal them because I hurt them. It was easy. It was a one way road of recovery. There's no other direction to go. I have to heal my family.

[Chris Williamson]

Isn't it strange that we find it easier to do something for us, for other people than do something for us for us?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

And that Strange quirk of maybe humans work to the same thing. You've probably been in movies where this is actually a scene. The bad guy wants to get the information out of you, so they're torturing you and they're doing stuff and you're like, no, it doesn't matter. Then they bring in someone you love.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. It's like, ah.

[Chris Williamson]

And you. That always breaks everybody. Right?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

And there's an interesting stat around the likelihood that we ensure that we complete a course of antibiotics is around about 50%, maybe a little bit less. The likelihood that we ensure that our dog completes its course of antibiotics is like in the 90s. So we're significantly better at looking after an animal than we are at looking after ourselves, despite the fact that if we are not functional, the animal's fucked.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

You know, and again with this, it's so interesting that we can use somebody else as other people, group of other people as the motivation for our recovery in that way.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Well, I think that it's something in the. I think it's within the limitations of inner perspective. It seems like it's the limitations of a human experience. Right. But it's also an act of love. I mean, the fuel behind that is all love. So in a spiritual form, that is just what, you know, we are to be anyway. In the human form, it's us protecting ourselves. Like the body's trying to protect itself. Right. And you know, we try to protect each other. We were social creatures for a thing. We try to. Right. One, ultimately people are good. We're just not situations for us to be good to each other. Right.

[Chris Williamson]

Even if you are doing this because you're going to help to heal your family, you don't want this to be the defining lingering memory of what happened, etc. The recovery is still on you. Finding the solutions is still on you. You're going to have.

[Jeremy Renner]

And it's also still my body. Like, I don't want to. I'm not going to hobble around this spinning rock for the next hundred years because now I'm titanium, man. Get out of here.

[Chris Williamson]

What? You know, you, you're laid awake at night a couple of weeks, a couple of months in. It's just one of those normal days. It's been an all right day of rehab, it's been an all right day of whatever, but you just, you're kind of deep in the hole and where was your mind going to keep your motivation to keep driving you forward?

[Jeremy Renner]

I, I always focused on, on the things that were Better now. Not every day.

[Chris Williamson]

All.

[Jeremy Renner]

All of me was better, but some part of me was getting better, and that's all I cared about. Just setting up was like a giant milestone for me. Not peeing in a jar. That was a great victory to go bathroom. Right? Just whatever it was. I kept things really simple and, And, And I made it okay. That. That's an amazing thing. So. Because there are days that aren't great and there's a lot of people that might get stuck in a rut of. You don't even have to be in recovery. I mean, you can just have a bad day and just like. But your brain, right? It's not. You can't let it wallow in that. Just get up off the couch. Move. Go move your body oxygen through your. Your system. It'll help you navigate something just to make a different choice. And it'd been easy for me to, like, not have any positive thoughts about things. Man, there's. There's not a lot of help or. Or hope to grab onto. So I just built the things that I could grab onto. Like I said, I kind of gamified things and. I know. I guess there's. I was just filled with such gratitude. But I wasn't gonna ever have a low bar set, right? There's that duality of it. Like, I wasn't gonna, like, oh, as long as I can just kind of walk or like. No, no. They said if I walked again, if I did, I'd walk funny. And said, you're never gonna run again. I said, I wish you would have told me that. I heard it from my family later on. I would have been running faster earlier just at that challenge. I'm also that guy.

[Chris Williamson]

You know that fuck you energy.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that or to challenge. Challenge me. Because I know what I can do and I know what I can't do, and I know my limitations. And sometimes I'll. I'll try to. I always try to exceed what. What I can or can't do. You have to go to such extremes of your obsessions to really grow. Like what cold plunges do for the body. And like, even. Even extreme hot does just the nerve endings in your body use a lot of heat, vibration for pain. Talking about pain. Heat, High heat, high vibrations great for pain.

[Chris Williamson]

Were you using power plate stuff?

[Jeremy Renner]

Powerplay stuff? Because that gets really, really intense vibration. That's great to just numb the nerve endings. A really hot bath.

[Chris Williamson]

And that's the reason why, when you bang, when you stub your toe, like you said earlier on, why do you rub it? It's because it's really difficult for the body to receive multiple signals at the same time.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just. Just confuses all the nerve endings seemingly. And I don't feel it. It's like, it's why I got off pain medication like that.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. What was your relationship? You know, a lot of people have injuries way less bad than this, and that's the beginning of their road down to darkness.

[Jeremy Renner]

I'm glad I had it. I'm glad it was there. It was, it was necessary. I mean, God damn, was it necessary? But it wasn't. I think it was like when I got home, switching from epidurals and IVs and all this stuff of. Right. In intravenously, you know, to, To, To. To deal with your pain management. And then going on just now just taking pills, taking OxyContin, you know that, you know, you get behind on that, you're. You're kind of screwed because then you realize, oh, it's going to take a minute to get through your system and.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. What's the, the, the bit of advice I was given after my surgery? Never chase the pain.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

No, don't. You've got to get out ahead of the pain.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. You gotta stay ahead of it. Otherwise you get behind. Oh, man. It's a. It's gonna be a bad day or so. Yeah, it was. So it happened like that happened once, maybe twice. But then it was like maybe four weeks in when I was home and I had a night tear. My. In my. Look, my mouth is broken. Everything. So many breaks in my face, in my head, and my teeth don't align. So I had a night tear. And then when your teeth aren't aligned, it's easy to crack a tooth.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep.

[Jeremy Renner]

And I cracked a tooth. Then I felt pain. I'm like, wait, I'm on oxycontin and.

[Chris Williamson]

This is breaking through.

[Jeremy Renner]

I like, yeah, it was breaking through. So I'm like, well then what do I need that oxycontin for? And the gabapentin, like, I'm out of here. So I went emergency extraction, put in a post, take the thing. I'm crying. Just got so happy that my pregnant dentist would come in and do this for me and got home and I said, I'm getting off. I'm not taking this stuff. I took it for the next day for the tooth. And then when that felt good, I just said, I'm cold Turking this stuff. And then I cried for like three and a half Days straight and shivered and cold sweats and the whole thing coming off the pain meds.

[Chris Williamson]

Tell me what that's like.

[Jeremy Renner]

It was way worse than the accident.

[Chris Williamson]

Why?

[Jeremy Renner]

Because how bad coming off that stuff is? It was just like uncontrollable crocodile tears. So emotionally just out of control crying and. It wasn't sad. I was just crying. I was doing PT just doing his band and stuff. Just sobbing. I just couldn't stop dysregulation and you know, I was shivering. I was so cold. I got all these electric blankets on me. Like I was coming off heroin or something essentially because I guess what it is or something, right. Oxycontin. Anyway, after the three and a half days, I talked to the pain management guy, the doctor and he's like, yeah, you can't do that, dude. No one does that. You gotta. You need. You need two weeks at least to kind of wean off of it. Both Gabby Pettin as well. All your nerve endings are like feeling everything right now. I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm freezing, I'm shivering and I'm crying. Well, why don't you. It's okay if you, you know, do a little bit. Ah. Done with it now. So I'm just gonna stay off of it. Thank God. I gotta shake it. But wow. What a terrible thing to. To be hooked on. Wow. I mean if you need that because you. Then your body gets numb to that kind of stuff anyway, then you need more of it, which is the terrible thing to it. So it's like you need to get the. Off that stuff as soon as possible. Is my recommendation. Find other ways. And high heat, high vibrations do tremendous things to your nerve endings to mitigate your pain. And it allowed me to sleep. That's why I love to. I take a super, super hot bath as much as I could stand. And then vibrations like on my. The parts that were really kind of just giving me some achy.

[Chris Williamson]

Achy sort of feel sitting on a power plate or.

[Jeremy Renner]

No, I mean I was too fragile. I was still too fragile at that time. I do it now, but I do it. I did like the. They have a roller that's a vibrating roller.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Jeremy Renner]

Super intense.

[Chris Williamson]

Just rest.

[Jeremy Renner]

I put both my knees, put it under both my knees or both my ank. Ankles. Ankles and knees. Oop. Night night. Going to bed. Amazing.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Jeremy Renner]

If you have any ankle or knee issues. As long as not breaks. As long as. If you're healing from a breaking do it. But great for. For nerve endings, tendons to get blood flow, circulation for Your for your things that hard to get blood flow through, like tendons, you know. Right. Pretty tough. All the cartilage areas, all our joints, you know, are all going to fail us anyway. But I just got every joint screwed early on.

[Chris Williamson]

What were the Take me through the big recovery modalities, sort of what contributed to your. To your rehab. And because you seem to recover very. Given how intense and sort of catastrophic the injuries are, you recovered really quickly.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, I became obsessed. I had to become obsessed at recovery. It was my main focus and it was awesome because my life was freed from any other obligations, even parenting, sadly. So I have to get this so then I can go back to being a parent. So I can go back. Right. So I became obsessed at. It's like I said, it was 24 hours a day. That's all I focused on. That's all my brain energy went to. That's all my thoughts went to. Were all recovery, healing, getting better, even dreaming of my bones growing over this metal pipe. All this stuff. It was just all that was. I was all in with every part of my body, even in my damn dreams about recovering. So the obsession and then it got to a place maybe just a few weeks later. I didn't have the plastic suitcases for my lungs. And then I'm sitting up in a thing and I'm in a wheelchair and I'm moving around and it's like I'm mobile. I'm getting more blood flow in. Ah, that's now just getting better, faster. And now it's maybe 16 hours a day of obsession and then reduced to 12 and it kept getting less. By the summertime, it was eight hours a day. I have to start my morning da da da routine and da da all the things and just keep going, keep going. And then what my body allowed me to do that was just sort of like not recovery stuff. I would do life stuff that was like recovery stuff. I'd go walk in the sand. Great for your ankles and stability in my hips and knees and all that stuff. But at least I'm outside in the sunshine at Lake Tahoe, breathing in the air, getting my feet cold. That's the biggest cold plunge in the world. That thing is freezing. And just go in that and that's awesome. So I can do that. So now I'm just doing eight hours and I reduce it to maybe four hours. By the time I started going back to work, I'd have to commit to four hours a day. Hyperbaric chamber put O2 throughout my body. Red light therapy was Huge. I still do these to this day. And all the. I mean, between the high heat stuff and the vibration, the red light, infrared beds and hyperbaric chamber, I'll do this for the rest of my life.

[Chris Williamson]

What peptides were you using? Thymosin, alpha thymosin, beta thymusin, BBC one.

[Jeremy Renner]

By seven, mot C, some.

[Chris Williamson]

I love Motsi, huh? Motsi is great.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. And there's TB 500. There's guys. There's a long, long list of stuff I had to do, hormone replacement stuff because my Testosterone was at 200. I had to get that up because I was gonna get some energy. So then get in the gym instead of falling asleep in the gym. So that helped getting. Regulating that because again, I'm 54 and at that time, you know, I didn't. No one tells you how to get old, but I guess my testosterone was super low. And that affects a lot of things in your body, especially your energy. So. Yeah. And there's a whole list of different peptides and I rotate them in and out. It's not like I do them all the time. I. I just kind of rotate. Just like supplements. I do the same thing with supplements. I rotate them in and out of my life. I'll go for a stretch of two months or three months on, three months off, or that kind of thing, you know, just to get your body to regulate, challenge it, let it try to produce its own hgh, its own testosterone, all those types of things. Really, really great to work on your body from a cellular level out.

[Chris Williamson]

Using the nad. Any.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, I do that every day.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Jeremy Renner]

Every day.

[Chris Williamson]

Subject.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, Sub Q. And also im. And I don't do it through the iv. IV because it just takes too long to go through that suck, you know?

[Chris Williamson]

It's not nice.

[Jeremy Renner]

It's not nice.

[Chris Williamson]

Sub Q. N A D is.

[Jeremy Renner]

I feel that, dude.

[Chris Williamson]

It's like a shot of coffee. It's really.

[Jeremy Renner]

Dude. Yeah, yeah. And I also feel like the light version of it in this can do your stomach like, oh, gosh. But it's only for 10 seconds.

[Chris Williamson]

It's nice. Once it goes five minutes. I had this theory about NAD, that one of the best parts of NAD was it finishing. It wasn't actually the effect. I've just been in so much discomfort. Yeah, exactly. Precisely. Precisely. Precisely.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

Because I don't know many things that you put in your body that immediately make you feel good. Like an I.V. or like a. Like a. An I.V. that's an instant thing. You're getting Hydrated pretty instantaneously. You are getting great vitamins. You can smell the vitamins. Vitamin C in your.

[Chris Williamson]

When they do that push.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. So that you feel pretty instantly and you feel good. Not much else. I can think that I've done it. I do everything. Everything. Maybe a hot bath. And that's only because you get out of it and you're like, okay, I'm not in pain. Like a cold plunge. When they say, like, oh, yeah, dude, you feel so good getting out. Yeah, you feel good getting out of that. Cause you're not dying anymore. That's why it feels good. It doesn't feel good ever. Does it feel good? No, it feels like hell. Except by getting out, you're just not dying anymore. Your body's screaming, I'm dying. I'm dying. Cold proteins release cold shock proteins. We all know this, that do it. I don't do a lot of cold plunges because I think you have to kind of. I do those when needed. There's a cryo chambers, you know, I'd rather do that crowd chamber. I felt being a little bit more effective, you know.

[Chris Williamson]

You like the hyperbaric?

[Jeremy Renner]

Hyperbaric. I love. I love it because it does take a little bit more time, but I can do my. Yeah, I can do emails, a cup of coffee. Because I can sit in a chair just like this and not just sit there and be like, I'm in some treatment. I'm like, forget it. I would never do it. But I'll just bio stack in there. I'll do a red light mask in there. I'll do whatever I can to do multiple things because I do many things all throughout the day.

[Chris Williamson]

How is it again?

[Jeremy Renner]

I would have these things on right now, but it'll mess up with the mics.

[Chris Williamson]

How is it that your face looks like your face? Why does your face look like your face? If a. If so much destruction, was it reconstructed?

[Jeremy Renner]

Interestingly enough. Interestingly enough, nothing. The only skin that broke was on the back of my head. And that's where all the blood was gushing because it, it. When it got ran over, it went to my cheekbone pressure in the back of my skull here. That was where the rollover pressure went. That's why I broke this cheekbone. And it floating around, broke my orbital and then my jaw. So this and then my jaw broke in three places. And the crack here. All the other marks on my body are scars from the surgeries to put the metal in. So it was more. It was more the insides of my body that Were crushed. And luckily one of my ribs poked my liver. But that because it broke in two spots. So there's a couple gaps. There was 14 breaks in and only six ribs. So several pieces of my rib cage were just gone.

[Chris Williamson]

Floating.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. Just moving around. So what was it we're talking about? I can't remember. Oh, yeah. My face is like. Yes. So once the swelling went down, they can see where the. The real damage is really just to my jaw. Because it's hard to fix your jaw, apparently. And also my teeth got pushed in the molars, so nothing sits right.

[Chris Williamson]

That's still the same case now.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. Forever.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

They can't palate expand.

[Jeremy Renner]

I think. I think we'll be risk losing the teeth. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna lose them all anyway from all that trauma.

[Chris Williamson]

Hold on to them.

[Jeremy Renner]

So I'm gonna hang on to them while I can. And I still got a decent smile. Everything's fine. It's just when I bite down, it's like chewing and eating is just not that enjoyable.

[Chris Williamson]

You gotta be careful with what foods you eat then. No hot dogs.

[Jeremy Renner]

I'm only careful with foods I eat. Just. Just what I want to put in my body, you know. And I'm not really a stickler about things. You know, I'm just. I'm just conscious about what it is a bit. Yeah, I like. I like eating steak, but you know, I don't try to chew on stuff too much. That gum will never chew gum. Like I put a gum.

[Chris Williamson]

What a price that you're gonna have.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

I'm interested in how.

[Jeremy Renner]

So anyway. The swelling with your eye, how does that go back in? There was so many ways that. That I should have an eye patch or a glass eye or something at this point. Right. Because of the orbital nerve. Didn't get pinched in the. In the crack. The nal tissue. No damage to like sense anything behind the eye or any of the nerves. It's a miracle. It's a miracle.

[Chris Williamson]

The best way that this could have happened.

[Jeremy Renner]

It's a miracle. Essentially it's just like moving it back in and duct taping it and just swelling went down and it started operating again. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah. So I think. I mean, there's. I don't know, there's a little unevenness with it. I don't care. My face is my face. I still look the same, I guess, for the most part. And there's no like plastic surgery or anything that had to happen. It was all internal. Like they put in. They put the plates in my eye and my, my cheekbone. He said we don't have to do it, but because your face is, you know, you're, you're living. We're afraid maybe you'll. You'll lose your cheekbone if we don't support it with a metal plate. And they just went inside my mouth and cut open all under the skin and put these plates in.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Jeremy Renner]

You know, so then I had screws in my, my skull and then my jaw to kind of rubber band it to put. To heal the jaw. And then that was it.

[Chris Williamson]

And then that was it.

[Jeremy Renner]

It's a. It's pretty harrowing how they get these screws out, though. They just like get a screwdriver from Home Depot and they just rip them out.

[Chris Williamson]

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[Jeremy Renner]

How would I ever be a victim?

[Chris Williamson]

Well, you've had this thing happen to you, which you didn't choose to.

[Jeremy Renner]

I wasn't even victimized. How could I be a victim?

[Chris Williamson]

You understand how this yes, yes. Narrative plays in people's minds.

[Jeremy Renner]

I'm telling you, I'm telling you my perspective. That's how. If ever I have been victimized, I still never be a victim. Certainly doesn't even apply to this incident. I made the choice. I don't regret my choice. I'm only saddened. And by that, I put so much terror in my family's life. My nephew cannot unsee the things I did. Not see. He saw the blood gushing, holding my arm, squatting to hold it in a certain position for 45 minutes. My eyeball out, legs twisted up, just calm, cool, collected, partial shock. But you cannot see it along the long list of all the other things that have happened, transpired because of it. So there's no, there's no. It's always my perspective and that's what I have control of. And there's, it's. I, I'm. I refuse to be haunted. I refuse to hobble around. I refuse to. And it's not going to happen. My will will not let it happen. But I. What is it? It's not gonna happen. Like if I believe I can fly and sprout a propeller out my ass, trust me, propeller's about to come out. I'm gonna propel around this room. I believe it's physically impossible. So I don't believe it, but that will. The reality is you build it. You can build your own reality. If you don't, you, you can become victimized or a victim. But you have to be sort of active in your believing and you're doing in your, in your heart, in your will. Your will is a thing. It's your life force. So. And it started with not wanting to hurt my family. You know, I wouldn't want to been on their side looking at me in the bed or hearing about it. My mom heard about on the phone call. How about that phone call? Had a 13 hour drive to get to my hospital bed in the snow. And the ice is brutal. So there is no me in any of this man, except getting better version of me. You know, there's no being victimized or victim mentality in it. There's impossible. It's impossible. It's just a square peg, round hole. It doesn't fit here, doesn't apply. At least I make it not apply if it does.

[Chris Williamson]

How's this changed your outlook on life now? Moving forward?

[Jeremy Renner]

It's quite the same. It's a lot better because there's less obstacles and that's where the white noise is gone. The things that I give, I gave credence to or gave great value to are wiped away.

[Chris Williamson]

What line.

[Jeremy Renner]

Everything outside the basic things that I want in my life time, shared experiences with people I love, laughter. It's really when I oversimplify my. A simple life that again very complicated, busy life I have. But I keep the white noise out. I don't listen to the. It's like the idea of like reading the comments or reading your reviews or Like I never did really anyway. But a version of that, you know what that is for an individual. What it is for me is not giving so much energy to my career. I do, obviously. I mean, I was working a year after the incident and I'm on second season, right. Fourth season right now. But I give energy to it. Right. But maybe. How much energy? Maybe I'm more married to. Central part of my life is my health and wellness. Everything else falls into place. I'm filming in Pittsburgh right now to get better. And then I happen to be filming Mayor of Kingstown season four. But I'm there to get better. My garage is filled with workout equipment, hyperbaric chamber, my red light, but all these things. My fridge. I brought a sack with my peptides and things. Like, I'm committed to my health and my wellness. It is a central part of my being and it has to be. And I like it and I love it and I want it to be so that simplicity, like it doesn't make. Then I don't get busy doing a bunch of other dumb stuff, you know, whatever, like what I would normally might do. And it's way better because life is much simpler and that. That's the only thing that's really changed. It's just like I just don't give so much energy and get myself away to just things that I don't want anyway, you know, I already have everything I want in my life anyway, you know, especially as like I've like had many careers. I have many careers and I do a lot of things and like, so I always had that drive to do stuff right as an independent, sort of be my own boss and go do things right. And you. And you knew what that's like. I think any athlete knows what that's like. I think any businessman knows what that's like. But when do you stop and really to get to enjoy it? When work becomes the central part of your life, but then you don't get in reap the benefits of all the hard work. Then what the fuck is the point? So now I'm doing the point. I'm working hard still. But I start with living the life first. Doing the life first that I want to live and then, you know, prioritizing what right. I reprioritize it, I think is the best way to say it. It's like I just put the priorities of me and my health that I didn't do before. I might wash my face once a week, you know, I go to the gym, brush my teeth face. But like Now I do, like, complete opposite of that. And I do so many things for my health and my wellness from the cellular level on out. And it feels good, dude. Oh, my God, it feels amazing. And then I'm so much better with everybody else. I can sit here in this room and not be in any pain. I can be in a good mood with you. I can do this all day long.

[Chris Williamson]

Is that different to how you were before?

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, this would be a choreography. This would be work. This would be time away from my daughter. I'd be here with a chip on my shoulder. I should be with my daughter right now. No, she's with me all the time now. I have her in my pocket. I give her little peanuts down there once in a while, take her out. You know what I mean? Spiritually, she's with me all the time, so I have that perspective. I'm not an angst of not being with my family or loved ones. Pretty amazing sort of perspective to have. And I try to hold on to those. It's a much lighter, more loving place and space to be.

[Chris Williamson]

I'm interested in the way that your mindset changes. Going from going from having to be so self focused to selfless focused to that and then sort of moving between these two. Right. Because there's a tension. It feels like there's a tension here. You're showing up to make yourself better, to help to heal everybody else. You've got you. That also needs to be served an awful lot. And yeah, it feels like there's a dynamic that's going on here between.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. I don't know what the future holds, to be honest with you, brother. The. The giant shift was. Which is. It's hard to say, you know, because. Because it's. To me. So it's like. It's like an airplane, right. And you lose. Use pressure in the. In the cat in the cabin, right. And the things come down. You're supposed to put it on yourself, then your kid. Well, every parent's gonna be like, no, you put on your kid first. That's been me, you know, raising my daughter. I'm always gonna look after and do the best for my daughter. And just like you're. We brought up earlier about how we like to take care. It's easier to take care of everybody else instead of yourself. And it's such like, such a martyrdom kind of thing. It's just. It doesn't. It doesn't really help us. But if we fill our own water first, right? Fill us first and then we can serve others. Better. It's. So I have to work that every day. I work that every day because my instinct is to always do something for somebody else first. Right? So I. The practice is that, like, I told you, like, the idea of, like, oh, wait, I went to Pittsburgh to film Mary Kingston. No, I didn't. I went there to go work with the great PT there. They got a great medics there, and da, da, da. Do all my health and wellness. And then I get to go back on set and create jobs and have a lot of good time on the show. Like, all that. It's secondary. That's just the way I think about it. You could look at it like, yeah, I went there to. Of course I went to go film there. Otherwise I wouldn't be in Pittsburgh. But, no, I'm going there because I. You know what I mean? I take control of, like, it. So I don't feel like I'm victimized by my job. Like, my job is removing me from my health and wellness. No, I can't do that. Same with anything. So I think starting with taking care of myself, because, again, because I have to again, I wouldn't do this if it didn't get ran over. If I didn't fucking die, sadly, my health and mental health and spiritual health would be depleted no matter how much I tried. So thank God I got crushed, because now I take care of myself very well, and I take care of others even more.

[Chris Williamson]

So it's interesting what you said about the hamster wheel, that you get on the priority of a job, of a calling, of something that's really important to you. My friend Bill wrote a great book, Die with Zero. And in it he says, delayed gratification in the extreme results in no gratification. And I think a lot of people that are super, super driven, they get caught in that trap, right? I got lots of positive reinforcement from the job that I do. I get accolades, I get recognition, I get back.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, it keeps you hooked along. Correct?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. I'm spinning on this hamster wheel, waiting for the day when I arrive at what some thing. I'm gonna continue to. Manana, manana, filling my cup. I'm gonna keep on pushing down, taking a little bit of time. And I wonder as well, whether a good bit of that is that a very busy life, a very chaotic life, doesn't actually force you to turn inward and go, is this actually what I'm supposed to. Am I spending my life in the best way that I can? It's like, well, look at how important I am. Look how busy I am. I can't be wasting my life. Look at how back to back the calendar is. I've got my toilet break scheduled in 1205.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you see different countries where capitalism isn't like the forefront of your existence. Some monetary things, some status, some jobs, some car, some object. Right. Whereas some more, you know, you go to Japan and it's more sort of Buddhist sort of thinking, and there's capitalism there for sure, but you go to Italy, there's capitalism there too. But there's also a love of life.

[Chris Williamson]

Way more cigarettes.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, exactly. There's wine. And when they close their shop at 2 and go take a nap or there's just, you know, there's a. There's a balance that can happen. America, it doesn't. America has such a strong sort of sense of capitalism, but it's also, you know, a strong country for. For that very same reason from industry is one thing, but then we, I think we lose sight of like, you know, the American dream is. Is. It needs to can shift. It can shift. We don't have to. It's. It's, you know, it's. It's just. It's interesting time. Just this time of information that we have. We could get so connected to everyone on the planet with all this information. And, you know, I found, you know, not disenchantment with the American dream that maybe I knew in the 80s, which is like, go to college with a dang. And get Dang. Maybe get a Porsche and whatever the heck it was as a young, dumb boy in the 80s, you know, it certainly shifted as I've matured as a man and now, you know, gotten older. But I, like, I have no regrets. And that came from dying and be in the hospital. I said, I wrote two goodbye notes, one to my family, one to my daughter, and I had no regrets. And I was so ready to go again because I was on machines, and I'm like, oh, man, I think they're gonna pull the plug on me at this point. But I, you know, it's nice to get that confirmation that you didn't. You don't have regrets. So I'm gonna keep going with that idea and keep living. I must be doing something right, so I'll continue with the, the ways. The ways I was thinking, because that confirmation was just a great, great gift to receive along with no bad days. You know, I'm not gonna get any bad days the rest of my life. That's pretty awesome. I want to live a long time Because I know what a bad day feels like. I can have maybe a bad moment. I could find frustration. I. You'd be hard pressed to get any rage out of me. That's just.

[Chris Williamson]

Was that something that you had before?

[Jeremy Renner]

No. That wasn't a Reiji guy? No, no.

[Chris Williamson]

I mean either.

[Jeremy Renner]

But just like, you know, just the idea of like, you know what you. When you see you get, you have to know the limits, right? And then reach beyond the limits tested beyond my limits and dying and coming back, it's like, all right, there's a different sort of. Oh, also I. I gotta see behind the curtains, you know, I know it happens. And like, it's super exciting, wonderfully peaceful, super electric, magnificent. It's everything. There's no time, place or space. It's like all that, you know, it's like, oh, that's just a knowingness just in the back of my mind. Wow, that's. That's amazing. And there's a long list of amazing gifts that kind of came with that. But going from like, oh, wait, your capitalism, the thing that, like that's spinning rock that we're on. And you can keep zooming out, that's where I start. Then I can get back in. Once I find I'm too microed into something like my blinders are on and information is limited. I'm like, what am I doing here? I'm giving too much credence to something that has no value. And that's what I did a lot. And I think that's what a lot of us do all the time. Because we have the freedom, the luxury of where we are in our lives, to pay a lot of attention to stuff that doesn't have value. How many colors of toenail polish are there, for God's sakes? Or whatever, the minutiae of what are we doing here? So let me zoom out. Let me zoom out a little bit. Let me aggregate what actually matters here and then go back in. Re. Engage into conversation. Re. Engage into my life. Reengage into whatever I was doing before. Because we get a little caught up. We can get caught up. I feel like there's a ticking clock. And the things that pressure and all these things, either we put it on ourselves or society can put on us. And I relieve myself of all those duties. I'm relieved.

[Chris Williamson]

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[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, I think that, I think that'll take time. I think I'm. I can swallow the idea. I didn't think I was going to go back to work. I had to live life in reality, not in fiction. It's hard for me to go back, but it meant a lot. I was around a lot of love. So then that felt.

[Chris Williamson]

What was the first day back on set like?

[Jeremy Renner]

I mean it was. It was very difficult. All of it was very. The energy levels were very low. I had like a couple good hours where I was awake enough to perform as a character I knew very well. And so that part was easy. Enough was I had to do a stunt as well. Little challenging but work through it. But all the working through with stunt guys and even the director all set up, the cameras do that. It was all just acts of love. So that, that was what felt. Everyone was happy that I was back. So yeah, I took it as it felt very loving and a very loving set and amazing group of people. So that's why I'm Back again. And it's pretty awesome. And I think to me it's also to make a statement. I was tired of just doing recovery. I got recovery down to eight hours at that point a day. And I had to reduce it to about four hours to start working. But I said, I think I'm ready. I think it's time. I gotta get back on the world. I can't just be, you know, some like recovery rat or like a gym rat. It'd be like a recovery rat. I mean, that's all I'm doing. I'm obsessing on recovery. I gotta do something else. I gotta participate in life and like, why not do it with these people?

[Chris Williamson]

There's a kind of fragility associated with that focus on recovery that never actually leads to you going back out into the real world. You know what I mean?

[Jeremy Renner]

Right. Well, that's also. Yeah. Becomes kind of futile at that point. Right. Well, what do I get to set my goals to do? You know, I think I was ready. I was definitely very social all throughout that. You know, so I was getting that. I was getting fed that part. But yeah, just kind of get it back out in the world and. And the world was really wonderful to me, you know, insularly with the set. And then even people I met out about, you know, I got wonderful treatment by people wherever I went. And wow, what a. That just that love that I would get just further. It just filled up my gas tank to get better, get stronger, do better, be better and. But all starts with me. I'm not doing it for anybody. Right. I'm filled with things I need to do for myself. And there's zero selfish bone in my body. You know what I mean? And I always had that. And I don't know if you too, but. Or if it's just a general thing. It feels selfish to take care of yourself so that, oh, I need to take care of everybody else. Right. I don't know if that's. But it certainly does. It doesn't even come across. I never. There's not a selfish bone in my body and I know it no matter what, how much time I spend on myself. You know what I mean?

[Chris Williamson]

What would you say to someone who is deep in the hole, some sort of recovery complex illness, injury, and they just haven't got that same fire that they need.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, I. I know, man. If, like if you need people around you need a support system, emotionally support you, even if they're just there in the background, you hate them. You hate hearing their voices in the other room as they're playing games. And my family was doing that. I didn't resent that. I would just love hearing their voice there. The rumblings in the other room as I was in there with rubber bands and stuff and doing my thing. They'd be happy if I wheeled out and joined them. But I had. There's always love and support. You know, you gotta have, you need a community almost. You know, maybe that, maybe that's why they have like, you know, treatment centers. There's lots of other people going through struggles. There's, you know, but you know, you're not alone, right? You have to believe that you're not alone and you can't do anything all by yourself. And that kept pushing me to keep going because I had a lot of help and that help I interpreted as love. And that was just all the few I needed. So I would say find support. I mean, if you're, gosh, if you're a person alone in a hospital, you know, wow, you got nurses there, you got a team there. He's trying to help you, you know, help them help you, help your body, help you create a crate. You're not alone because you have your body create as a separate thing. That's a new girlfriend or new boyfriend or whatever you want it. New dog. It's a new separate entity that you get to work with. Separate your body from yourself from your mind. Then you can work together to get better because they work together wonderfully. If. Right. That's a great dialogue to have. That's. That was very clutch for me in my loneliness of it. But it's very, very effective for, for neuro pathways and making new pathways for.

[Chris Williamson]

Yourself to treat your body like something that needs instructing.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, or to treat it with respect. Like I, I saying it's a bad dog is. I think it's a bad analogy. But it's like, you know, it's just like it's just a partner. But you are, you're not helping me out here. So you got to listen to me. I'll listen to you if you listen to me. But it treat as a respect. It's still, I respect my body, but I'll tell it to fuck off once in a while, you know, and it's like, all right, I gotcha, I gotcha, I gotcha. But you know, I give my body a personality. Like it's a, you know what I mean? I see it in my head. And then we have this relationship now. It's just like almost unconscious thing. That happens. And nothing, nothing. I get no flarebacks or setbacks or anything. I mean the worst. And also, I never use the word even pain. I'll use discomfort. I'll use inflammation, stiffness. It's the worst thing I can ever say about my body.

[Chris Williamson]

But no pain.

[Jeremy Renner]

No, I know what pain is. That ain't pain. Inflammation, stiffness, walking, whatever. My back's like all out of whack and out of control and whatever. It's hard for me to get up and down sometimes. But like, but it's just all temporary. It's temporary. You move through that. It's a bad afternoon, it's a rough morning, whatever, who cares? You move through it. It's temporary. It's all temporary anyway, isn't it? Your time on this planet is temporary. So make it the best you can. Work through the obstacles as best you can, right? We all going to get obstacles. No matter how rich you are, how poor you are, how strong you are or whatever, we're all going to have problems and obstacles. How good you are getting over those and through those, how fast and efficient you are with those, you're gonna have more joy in your life. Leaves a lot more room for joy and laughter and other things you really want.

[Chris Williamson]

I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up what, at least to me as a total noob in this world, a muggle outside of the industry, looks like maybe one of the biggest productions of all time, which was the Avengers series.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

Like looking back on that, what was being involved in that production?

[Jeremy Renner]

Like, you know, it removed initially itself from you, became part of something so collective. It's right. Such a collective type of narrative. The movies I was doing before were pretty more like I was a lead of a movie and the story is told through my character. Da da da da. This is such an ensemble sort of peace. So you had to rely upon so many things and so many things that didn't even exist. It was fantasy and you know, this whole green screen and like people are dressed in checkerboarded outfits and you know, so this fantasy world and then, and then there's something that became really powerful in knowing that how, how much it meant to kids, right? How like you know, the wide eyed ness of hope of kids. Like, I don't know, it's such a great sort of conduit to kids and I love kids. I'm the oldest of seven and it's sort of my birthright just to, you know, to have them or to be with them. That's why I have a, you know, renovations, foundation. I mean, to give hope and opportunity as a kid is really, really important to me. So, like, it started off there dressing in costume. You know, it looked ridiculous at first. We're all dressed. You know, there's Hemsworth. You look a lot like a Hemsworth. And you put him in. He's got a wig, and he's just. But he's got, like, a latte. He's in a store. He's got this foam hammer or rubber hammer, this bow and arrow. We're all trading around our props. We're at some Halloween costumes.

[Chris Williamson]

I was going to say, what's it feel like when you step out of each. Your respective trailers and you come in and everyone's got the. It is kind of.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. That's when we are. Because we're all figuring out. This is at the beginning, right in the first Avengers. We're all kind of figuring out each other, and then each other's characters and costumes and. And then it's just grown into, you know, a family, you know, a personal family. We have our own private sort of chat and all gone through, like, marriage and divorces and kids, and all these things happen over these last 13 years we've been together. And it's also shared on a stage that's almost a significant, culturally significant, sort of 22 giant films to make. The last one that all led to Endgame. Right. It's quite a significant thing to have happened over. Over the course of, you know, almost 12, 13, 14 years. And it was awesome to be a part of. And I get to take away again, like I said, it's the great friendships, lasting friendships. We'll have matching tattoos that sort of signify our bond, that in this extreme narrative, crazy narrative of superheroes and a strange fantasy world brought us together. And now I have, like, really, really amazing loving friends. And I have great conduit to children to be able to help them. And because being famous before kind of sucked. It ripped away your sort of. Well, I wouldn't say it's totally sucked, but, like, it just. It takes away your privacy. All the things, you know, you don't get to do just normal things. I'm just a normal dude from. Kid from Modesto, California. I want to do normal. I just don't get to do fine, but I can do other things. Great. But, you know, having a voice to kids. Because I took my daughter when Endgame came out. She was 5 years old, and I dropped her off at school for the first time, and she Was in kindergarten. And then as I dropped her off in there, it was kind of nerve wracking. I hear my name, Jeremy Renner, be called by some third grader. And I don't know why does this third grader know my first and last name? That's Jeremy Renner. Like you. They're not even saying Hawkeye something. Oh, that's Hawkeye. And I had like 30 kids come chasing me down with cell phones out. I mean, what are you doing with cell phones? First of all, you get. Anyway, so I take pictures with them all. Like, get back in. Get back in your classrooms. And I went home kind of freaked out that all these kids chasing me, but thought what a cool thing that is now to have. I can use a celebrity, have a real voice and use it in a proper way. Use it for a good thing. So that forever changed my life. And that's where the. The foundation came involved. And I can really make a difference for kids. It's usually foster youth and disadvantaged youth. And to put a smile on kids is just the best feeling anyway. And hard to do if I was playing Jeffrey Dahmer. Hard to do. Probably couldn't do it if I was doing this role or doing that role or doing that role. But because I did something that kids could watch, like my daughter never saw any of this stuff, but these kids were old or whatever. So anyway, I had such conduit to kids and that became such a beautiful payday for me. Because the greatest payday for me doing anything in Marvel was my access to give love to kids, to inspire kids, to give them, especially these foster youth and disadvantaged youth, some opportunities and plant some seeds of hope for them.

[Chris Williamson]

Can you remember what your last scene was in the filming schedule for the entire sort of franchise so far? What was the last thing you did or the last day that you were on set? Were you there for the final day of filming? Overall, to give the big.

[Jeremy Renner]

Oh, yeah, yeah, we had all that. We got all of us together just to do press. I had to get all the Avengers together because it got quite big at endgame. So that was like a big sort of high school reunion kind of feeling like, oh, my God, nobody's in costume this time. But yeah, the last day of filming, yeah, it was a reshoot, I believe, for Scarlet and I. Her death scene, which is brutal. But I also did the Hawkeye series. So then that continued on.

[Chris Williamson]

Kicks it on.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of continued on. And you know, because I love to love to continue on, but mainly continue on because I Like the character. And I think we can do a lot for more with kids with it and I want to affect a lot of kids.

[Chris Williamson]

So was there ever a sense of poetic irony that Hawkeye, given that one of your eyes was out of your head and on the floor, did that pass? Probably other stuff to focus on during that 45 minute period, but yeah, yeah.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, didn't come in my head.

[Chris Williamson]

So what are you focused on now? What's coming up next for you?

[Jeremy Renner]

Well, I stick really quite present. I. I kind of try not to let my future get a hold of me because it did in the past. So I focus the renovations Foundation. I have a couple camps that I'm doing. It's grown quite significantly, which is great. A lot of support, a lot of community support. So I'm really focused on that as a outside of my mental health and physical health. And the foundation is probably second in line as far priority. That's a bigger scope of something. And all my family's involved in the foundation as well, which is so killer. It's given them a, you know, real direction in life as well. My passion to, to help kids, so it's really easy and my sister, you know, running it and then work wise. Yeah. There's a other movie coming out later this year I'm excited about. The Knives out is the third one in that and then Mayor Kingstown's continued on and people seem to really like that one. It does well for Paramount plus and I'll probably do one more season for sure it seems if people still like it, which I think to do is going to be a pretty killer season. But outside that I'm building a house, I stay. I'm always building and designing and doing those things and trying not to get too busier than just that. That's a pretty booked year. I'm trying not to work anymore for the rest of the year so I can go focus on the foundation and helping that grow and that sort of stuff. So that's. Those are the important things to me and my family. Of course, you know, I gotta go. I can't wait to spend the summer with my daughter. She loves working with, with the foundation and helping the kids. And it's pretty cool. Pretty cool to see her growth as an emotional, emotionally intelligent creature. She's a lovely, lovely human. My daughter's become out to be so very proud.

[Chris Williamson]

I'm happy for you, man.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, thanks, man. I'm really happy. I'm really happy.

[Chris Williamson]

Jeremy Rana, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, you're awesome. I think being able to see somebody sort of publicly go through a challenge like this is really important. It really, really is.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah. I'm glad it became a public thing. I'm glad. I mean, I never wanted to be. Because I woke up and then it was like, you know, but I was gone for a while. But by the time I woke up, it was like, it was everywhere. Right. And like, that was a private moment between me and my nephew with my family on my driveway. It's none of your damn business. And I, you know, but I guess I just kind of leaned into it and just made it a. They made it public. So then I shared a private experience with everybody, and it was wonderful. That's where a lot of the narrative grew from me being a man or a brother or just a friend or. I wasn't the actor anymore. I was just somebody that went through something. Something they might be curious about or not, or just someone that's had a lot. Right. So that was. I'm really glad it became such a public thing, and I'm glad who. Me, being very private, typically shared a lot of sort of milestones that I had through social media or through the press. The press is very like, whatever I said on social media, they just went out and printed everywhere. And I'm glad I created a lot of wonderful relationships with the public, with fans that you can't just. I mean, I'm glad. I'm so glad for it. But I tried. I tried to do the Diane Sawyer thing and then say, okay, here's what happened. Now let's move on. Let me get back to it. No, no, no, no. That. Just the beginning.

[Chris Williamson]

Write the book. Do the interviews.

[Jeremy Renner]

Oh, yeah. Wrote an album. Yeah. All this stuff. So. So even, like with this book, it's not going to be. It's just only going to be a chapter. It's not going to be. I'm letting this go for the rest of my life. I'm never going to let this go. It's just always going to be part of now, my DNA. I mean, it is for me and, you know, the importance of it be maybe less in public, which would be good. But it's. It's something I was. I can't just shove away anymore. It's just now become a central part of who I am. And I'm thankful for that.

[Chris Williamson]

Maybe don't do it again.

[Jeremy Renner]

I'm not gonna do that again. Now I'm on the Snowcat again. But, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm like, let that thing haunt me. That's not happening.

[Chris Williamson]

Jeremy, I appreciate you man.

[Jeremy Renner]

Yeah, thanks brother. Appreciate it.

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, tasty. Jeremy Renner made it all the way to the end of that episode. Well, why not watch the Indian Hawkeye Naval Ravikan right here? If you're wanting to read more, you probably want some good books to read that are going to be easy and enjoyable and not bore you and make you feel despondent at the fact that you can only get through half a page without bowing out. And that is why I made the Modern Wisdom Reading list, a list of 100 of the best books, the most interesting, impactful and entertaining that I've ever found, fiction and non fiction and there's real life stories and there's a description about why I like it and there's links to go and buy it. And it's completely free. You can get it right now by going to ChrisWillX.com books that's ChrisWillX.com books.