Jeremy Renner Looks Recovery in the (Hawk)Eye in Diane Sawyer Interview

The story of Jeremy Renner’s injuries is a far cry from those of the superheroes who seem to be able to fall down a building, get shot and stabbed, and still get back up. Renner spoke with Diane Sawyer for his first full interview since breaking over 30 bones after being in a snowplow accident on January 2. Good Morning America shared a clip before the spot aired April 6 at 10 p.m. In it, we hear the story of Renner’s injuries — including a collapsed lung and a “major laceration” that required staples in the back of his head — from the perspective of the neighbors who called the police, Renner’s nephew, and, ultimately, Renner himself.

The actor explained that he fell off the snowplow when he tried to check on his nephew without setting the parking break, but tried to jump back on the moving vehicle to stop it from hitting his nephew. When he ultimately went under, he recalls screaming, “Not today, motherfucker!” Elsewhere in the interview, he recalls wondering amid extreme pain what would happen to him. “I’m thinking, like, What’s my body look like? Am I just gonna be like a spine in a brain like a science experiment?” Renner remembers. “Is that my existence now? I sorta felt like I just, What am I — what’s my existence gonna be like?” He later told his family that he didn’t want to live if he would have to depend on tubes on a machine, drugs, and painkillers.

Renner’s ribcage and eye socket were rebuilt with metal, a titanium rod was put in his leg, and his jaw is now held together with rubber bands and screws (but don’t worry, he showed Sawyer that his Avengers neck tattoo is still intact). He is already back at work, promoting an upcoming show on Disney+ titled Rennervations, in which he converts abandoned cars into community resources, out April 12. “I have no regrets. I’d do it again. I refuse to have that be a trauma and to be a negative experience,” Renner says. “That is a man I’m proud of, because I wouldn’t let that happen to my nephew. So I shifted the narrative of it being victimized or making a mistake or anything else. I refuse to be fucking haunted by that memory that way.”