American actor and musician Jeremy Renner is feeling grateful for the second chance he received at life after his brush with death in January 2023.
During the debut episode of SiriusXM’s "This Life of Mine With James Corden", the Marvel star, 53, opened up about the horrific incident and how it has affected him, including permanently changing his view on death.
"I was never afraid, mind you, of death prior. Now, I'm really not afraid of it. Now, I'm double downing. Yes, certainly not afraid of it," Renner said. "Now, I'm kind of excited for it. To be honest, it's what life really is. This rock that we're spinning on and this body and this language that we're speaking and all these feelings and emotions and conflict is all horse s**t. It's meaningless in the scheme of things."
Renner broke more than 30 bones and had multiple operations after he was accidentally run over by his six-tonne snowplough while trying to help his nephew on January 1, 2023.
His injuries included eight ribs broken in 14 places, a right knee and ankle broken, a left leg tibia broken, a left ankle broken, a right clavicle broken, a right shoulder broken, and more.
Renner was discharged after two weeks.
During his new sit-down with Corden, the actor was asked what possession he would like to talk about -- presumably part of a segment for the new show -- which prompted The Hurt Locker star to share that his item is "titanium."
"Which titanium, specifically?" the former host of The Late Late Show asked.
"It's certainly not the watch," Renner joked. "It's the 15, 20 percent of my body at this point and it will be with me forever. It's like half of my ribs, right?"
"So, these are titanium implants that are in your body?" Corden responded.
"Correct. A bunch of them, yeah. Recovery is like a one-way road. I wasn't going to come back from death, which I thought was glorious, by the way," the actor said.
That's when Corden asked what he meant by that, prompting Renner to share that he had a peaceful experience after one of the scariest moments of his life.
"I don't know if it's fading into consciousness or just fading out of like heart stoppage," he said as Corden asked what he remembers from then. "That everything was, all life was grand. All life just got better. It's an energetic thing. There's no time, place or space or color or anything. It's just a known peace."
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On top of feeling grateful for his life, Renner told Corden that the accident made him increasingly thankful for the people in his life who showed up to support him in his time of need. One of those people is Avengers: Endgame co-star and friend Anthony Mackie.
"One of the first people at my hospital bed was Anthony Mackie. This accident. He was in Vegas. He shot over and he's the first person I saw when I woke up and we don't talk all the time," Renner said.
"We're not like hanging out all the time because the problem with having, you know, actor friends, everyone's so busy and now we're all parents and we never see each other. We rarely talk to each other, but the connectedness that we have is an always thing," he continued.
In January, Renner returned to set on "The Mayor of Kingstown" for season 3 of the Paramount+ series, posting a photo of himself in character -- wearing a long black coat over a gray suit and tie -- as he smirked for the camera.
"Day one on set ... nervous today," he wrote in the caption. "Hope this works out that I can ACTUALLY pull this off for our production and more importantly for the fans."
A release date for the highly-anticipated new season of the show has yet to be released.