It’s pretty easy to dump on Hawkeye, the Avenger whose superpower is “has a bow and arrow.” The ribbing is mostly good-natured, as Hawkeye is an integral member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s premiere super-team, but it does seem fitting that, of all the Avengers, Hawkeye’s actor would be the one who broke both his arms while filming a movie about playing tag, the children’s game.
Jeremy Renner (and Hawkeye) sat out Avengers: Infinity War, but the hero is set to come back in next year’s Avengers 4. Before he filmed the MCU flick, though, Renner shot an upcoming comedy called Tag, a based-upon-a-true-story movie about a group of adult friends who have been playing the same game of tag for 30 years. On the second day of filming, Renner broke both his arms, as co-star John Hamm explained on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
On Wednesday, Entertainment Weekly published more of story, having interviewed Hamm and Renner in April. Renner explained that he needed to climb 20 to 30 chairs that were stacked nearly 20 feet tall for a stunt. While climbing, the rigging holding up the chairs broke, and Renner tumbled to the ground. At first, he tried to get up and do the stunt again.
“Then I realized, I think something’s wrong, so I went to the hospital, and they said it was broken, so I got them wrapped up and then I went back to work and did everything I could do to continue on as we did,” Renner told EW.
Renner had splints on both his arms for most of filming, and had limited motion of the limbs while they were healing. That chair-climbing stunt ended up needing CGI arms to be shot. But, Renner finished the movie. Then it was time to shoot Avengers, and Renner was very brave.
“It’s sort of like a battle of my will to heal as fast as I possibly could, I did therapy just painfully every day and I was able to get through it all as best as I could,” Renner explained.
“What else do you do, you just stop and cry and everyone go home? You know what I mean?” he continued. “I’d be like, ‘sorry guys, I’m not going to use a bow and arrow now in Avengers,’ it’s silly, so I have to kind of push through so that you can perform for everyone.”
Hawkeye will use a bow and arrow in Avengers 4, Renner says, and it doesn’t seem like the broken arms will be noticeable in the MCU film.
Still, though… you don’t see this kind of shit happening or Iron Man or Black Widow. Frickin’ Hawkeye, man.
Tag opens on June 15, Avengers 4 on May 3, 2019.
