Jeremy Renner Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

It's awesome.

I get paid to learn all these amazing things,

get in great shape.

Otherwise I'd been like a sloth on a beanbag

watching some football, right, like I'm doing now.

I need another action film

so I can get paid to get in shape. [laughs]

[upbeat music]

Dahmer.

That was the first time where I, you know,

I had to play somebody that existed,

embody the person that existed

and not just, you know, making up a character, right?

So there's limitations to that.

Limitations are very helpful

and help guide where you wanna go

with what you need to do, right?

All the other parts are very, very difficult

'cause I was discovering what he had done,

what, you know, his life was like, you know, very quickly

and how do I embody that with truth,

the hows and whys and whats that he is and does

and thought and felt, and those types of things.

So I had to do like some work on my own

to find to be courageous enough.

I mean, to be frank, something I had to do is like,

you know, look at cross sections of humans

and think of it like a Playboy

and try to find some sort of thing to that.

Is being courageous enough physically, emotionally,

spiritually, mentally to do that, right?

That allowed me to freedom to find some sort of space

of where that brain and spirit is in Jeffrey Dahmer, right,

'cause the guy just...

I can't relate to the guy,

but I had to find ways to do that.

I saw this mannequin

and I thought maybe it'd be a challenge

if I could sneak it out without anybody seeing it,

like a prank.

So you, you still have it?

Yeah, but I'll return it and this will be over.

[Jeremy] Thank goodness I was actually playing somebody

that did exist because it allowed me to then just focus

on the limitations of how he held himself, how he spoke,

how we walked and talked, and all that sort of stuff.

Why don't we just go downstairs, go to church,

I'll be attentive to everyone's needs,

and I will return the mannequin.

It'll be okay.

It was pretty harrowing, to be honest with you.

It was pretty crazy.

I remember my dad saw the film when it came out

and he couldn't even hug me afterwards. [laughs]

And so I'm like, Okay, good.

I guess I did a good job. [chuckles]

Wasn't quite sure.

There's just a different entry point into the character.

If it wasn't somebody that existed,

it would be the location to determine...

'Cause we're all products of our environment, you know?

If we talk about Jem from The Town,

that is a product of an environment of Charlestown

and Boston and a thing that,

that guy doesn't exist, but you know,

certainly formed and shaped who the character was

because of that place.

If it was Jeffrey Dahmer,

there's the limitations of the person that does exist

that formed the behavior of the character.

[Interviewer] Jem doesn't exist, but he does exist

because there's a version of Jem out there.

Oh, there's a thousand of them. Yeah.

All my friends from Boston they're like,

Dude, I know this guy, da da da.

You know what I mean? They're all out there.

[upbeat music]

The Town.

I have nothing but just fond memories of that,

just from Ben and Elswit, our DP, just the whole crew.

Everyone behind that is stellar at their job,

and that's amazing already.

You're in a winning position.

And then to, you know, shoot a film

that's about this very specific kind of region

in that region.

If we would have shot that in Burbank, California,

it would have been a hot mess, right?

But we were able to shoot that film based upon Charlestown

in Charlestown, right, with that community in Charlestown,

which is a very specific area, you know?

And Owen Burke being one of the guys from that area, right?

And Ben was also like the prince of Boston,

you know, being kind of a famous guy.

There's a lot of pride in that community

for lots of things.

But yeah, Ben being one of those.

And I mean, it all informed us

to be the best of what we could be

to help tell that story in that area.

And it was awesome. We had just such great experiences.

I mean, that's where I learned the accent,

it's where I learned the behavior,

it's where I learned that there are 5, 10, 1,500 guys

just like Jem.

I met versions or I just pulled, cherry picked pieces

from people and behaviors, you know, to find that guy.

A guy's walking with two horses, right?

One horse is carrying 100 pounds, the other one's got 50.

Now the 100-pound horse falls over dead,

so the guy's like, What the [beep]?

Takes a 100-pound sack, puts it on the 50-pound horse.

And that 50-pound horse, he won't move.

He won't take one step with another pound on his back.

That's me.

This is all I know.

Yeah, I got to spend a lot of time with the boys

on and off camera, off camera especially,

you know, just to kind be more familiar,

make it easier for our jobs even.

And it's also like a very Boston kind of quip.

You know, their sense of humor can be very...

You know, you demean somebody or a thing, you know?

It's a different thing. It's a very specific thing.

It's funny as shit to me. I love it.

A lot of people think I'm from that area.

I'm like, No, I just went there to shoot that film.

That's it.

But yeah, I have a kinship to that area.

I love it. I love it.

[shoes clacking] [people chattering]

I need your help.

I can't tell you what it is,

you can never ask me about it later,

and we're gonna hurt some people.

[people chattering]

Whose car are we gonna take?

[upbeat music]

The Hurt Locker.

I had the opportunity to spend a year with EOD

and did all the courses that they did to become EOD

and how to essentially build bombs

and then render them safe.

There's a whole like Santa's workshop that they have set up,

and I say Santa's workshop 'cause it looks like

just sort of like a bunch of elves making shit,

and they make bombs over here,

and then you go over here and learn how to render them safe.

Whether it's electrical or det cord,

you learn about all these things,

and then about bomb-making signatures and all this stuff.

And then you put on the suit

and there's a whole test you do, a physical test.

You'll do it for like...

You're only supposed to spend like 15-20 minutes in a suit,

but you do it for like 30 minutes,

and your job is to go, you know, do all the protocol

and then you find the 155 and you grab it, you know,

take out the det cord and take the 155 back,

which is, you know, about 75 pounds.

You're in a 100-pound bomb suit, it's 130 degrees,

and you do it.

So you do all the physical part,

and a lot of people pass that.

But now what you do after you finish that bit,

you go into the classroom and go to a whiteboard

and just do simple division, like, you know, 7 into 49.

And you're just like, Hmm.

You have to kind of think about it for a minute, right?

It changes sort of your capacity to think, right,

where your head's at, where your brain's at

'cause of all the stress.

This is all preparation to understand that job,

the stress, the physical stress and the mental stress,

emotional stress, all that sort of stuff,

and then the mental toughness that comes out of that.

[suspenseful music]

[bombs clanging] [James grunting]

Oh boy.

[suspenseful music]

[wire cutters snipping]

Now you'd think these would be like badass soldiers.

Most EOD look like school teachers. Like what?

They're all just like look pretty much

like you're a school teacher.

For the most part.

I mean, the guy that trained me

was a big linebacker-looking dude. [laughs]

But, you know, he had the heart and the mind

of just, you know, very sort of super, super, super smart.

They're all very, very, very intelligent.

It's a very interesting job to me, man.

20 meters to the right of the building.

He's moving, he's moving, he's moving to the building.

Follow him. You got him?

[Sanborn] Got him.

[rifle firing]

[Sanborn exhaling]

He's down.

Good night. Thanks for playing.

There's an intensity of like, you know,

what this really means.

You're just waiting it out, right?

It's just, everything's like a chess game in that film

from, again, the signatures of bomb makers

and what they use and how they do it.

They pass notes back and forth between, you know,

EOD and then bomb makers.

There's a communication that happens.

[beep] fascinating to me that that happens, right?

I'm gonna build this bomb

and this motherfucker's gonna see the note.

and they go, Oh yeah, gotcha on that one,

or, You got me on this one, right?

That happens. Crazy.

I mean, I don't think I ever felt

like I was comfortable doing that

in the sense of, for the piece.

But I certainly felt my personal effects of being

just my first time ever in the Middle East

just as like a white kid from Modesto, California

going and spending so much time

over there in the Middle East, and then coming back.

So my version of the cereal aisle is going to a Starbucks.

I was a bit kind of culture shocked

when I got back to the States anyway,

and all I could hear is this conversation

these two girls are having

about their cracked toenail polish.

And I was like, [beep], What the [beep]?

And I went home and I didn't leave for like 30 days,

'cause of just culture shock of like...

It has nothing to do with, you know, movie or bombs

but I had my own personal version of that

and how I had to sort of process that, you know,

and thought about things and what I was exposed to.

It certainly shifted my thinking in a very big way.

Not that I had been through war, not that I'm a soldier.

It's none of those things.

It's just sort of my personal experience

of like, you know...

It was harrowing enough just what I did,

just in a physical, spiritual way with the, you know,

and shooting that thing, shooting that film, you know?

[upbeat music]

Hawkeye.

It's been a wonderful, wonderful, you know, blessing,

first and foremost.

Five amazing friends that we've all shared

something very similar

and been through a lot of things together

personally and cinematically,

and we shared so much together.

That's shared experience is where it's all at for me.

It's a beautiful thing.

And within the world, just, you know,

when it gets to the character and stuff,

there's like limitations of like how to really kind of,

you know, forward the character,

understand the character more,

'cause, you know, everyone's got a cog in the wheel

to support the whole picture.

There's been telling, you know,

like in Age of Ultron when Hawkeye had a family

that no one knew about

and this farm in the middle of nowhere,

and that was very telling.

I don't know if that was written

because that's what my life is,

'cause I'm a single father and the thing, you know?

Doesn't matter if it's cart before the horse

or the chicken or the egg, it's still there,

and I love that that's there implemented.

It created such a wonderful grounding rod

for people that fly around

or guy with the hammer can do this and da da,

and laser beams, you know, all this sort of stuff.

There's just a wonderful grounding rod.

Here's a guy with no superpowers.

He's got a stick and a string.

He's got a family, right?

That said a lot to me, set an intention

where that character's going,

and ultimately to where we're at now with this series

is kind of hovering around is no different

than that basic principle.

You know, stick and a string, a family and it's Christmas.

Honey?

I'm home.

[melancholy music]

Hi. Company.

Sorry I didn't call ahead. Hey.

This is an agent of some kind.

Gentlemen, this is Laura.

I know all your names.

[melancholy music]

[shoes clacking]

Ooh, incoming.

Dad! Hi, sweetheart.

Hey, buddy. How you guys doing?

Look at your face. These are smaller agents.

[Interviewer] What's the filmmaking process like

when you do a film of this scale?

When you do films of this scale?

Yeah, well, it's just different, right?

You really wanna see...

I know what Wind River's gonna look like when it's done.

I have no idea what the film is gonna look like

in the Marvel Universe.

I have zero clue.

I mean, I know the scenes we shot

when it's inside of a lab or something.

But like when you don't know what the backdrop is

or like what the Hulk really looks like.

It's just, it's completely different.

But, you know, what I don't know what's gonna look like.

You know, I just don't know.

But the process of shooting it, some things inform you,

like you just focus on what you do know

and don't worry about the things you don't know,

or learn about the things you don't know.

You know, you just gotta do what you gotta do.

There's a lot of stunts also,

and your wearing the most inappropriate clothes

to do the stunts, you know? [chuckles]

Just all that stuff.

But you know, you just, you do the best you can

with the limitations and move forward.

[upbeat music]

The Assassination of Jesse James

by the Coward Robert Ford.

[Interviewer] They say that one of the greatest scenes,

from a cinematography perspective,

is the scene where the train arrives

and you guys do the heist.

Oh yeah.

[Interviewer] So what was it like filming that?

Because I know that you were only lit by lanterns

and the actual train.

And we had [beep] bags in our heads.

Sorry, what are we doing out here freezing?

I could be anybody.

I could be James Van Der Beek, no one will know.

I was with Sam Rockwell and Sam Shepard,

and we're sitting in the woods and it's freezing,

it's like four in the morning.

I think Brad Pitt's like with the lantern or something

on the thing, trying to slow the train down,

wherever the heck it was.

I remember this very specifically

'cause we're all sitting there

and we're freezing and we're tired,

and Rockwell, he's got a couple eyeholes

and you can only see out of like one eyehole,

and we're just laughing at each other

'cause we didn't even know what's going on.

And his burlap sacks are on our heads, right,

and we're waiting to go rush this train to rob it.

And don't know if we ever got to it even that night.

I remember all of a sudden Sam Shepard just took off.

He was like, you know, Forget this. I'm out here.

This is bullshit. [chuckles]

And he just left.

And Rockwell took the thing off.

He's like, Dude, Renner. I think Shepard just took off.

I'm like, Ah, I guess, man.

It's kind of gangster, but like what are we doing here?

We're off camera with bags on our head,

freezing our asses off.

He's like, Should we go to?

He's like, Yeah, I think we should.

Let's get out of here.

We're never gonna get this shot.

Eventually, somehow, some way, we did get the shot.

[dramatic music]

[train whooshing]

[dramatic music]

[train whooshing]

I grew up, you know, definitely riding horses

and being in the countryside as part of my life,

and it's something I wanted to explore,

something that was really great about that movie

we had beautiful, beautiful horses

at our disposed at all times just to go out and ride.

That was awesome, and that was our job,

you know, and prep for the show.

I went out and rode a lot

and that was just, you know, it's a great, great opportunity

to go do that, you know?

There wasn't a lot of meat on the bone for me to do

a whole lot in the picture.

I was a certain sort of, you know,

chess piece in that picture.

There was just a lot of time spent there.

I mean, I feel like I could have shot all my shit out

in a week, you know?

But you know, it's six months.

You know, I just became a really good rider, you know?

[upbeat music]

Arrival.

[Interviewer] There's sometimes you watch a film

and you kind of sit with yourself afterwards,

'cause it's like, it's kind of like really...

It triggers something within you, right?

One of those films for me was Arrival.

Ah, it's funny when you said that.

[Interviewer] Just such a beautiful film.

Do you feel the same way?

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

'cause I don't really watch anything I do,

except for maybe like a early cut of something, or yeah.

But it's exactly the feeling I got when I saw that.

Didn't know much what was gonna happen

in terms of it was a very, very sparse film,

and the character was limited

in the sense of what we could tell in the story

'cause it's a such a rug pull.

When I saw that, I remember exactly where I saw it,

I remember exactly what happened to me.

I had to sit and be like, Goddamn.

I mean, I said, That's a [beep] filmmaker,

and I walked out and I started weeping in the parking lot.

I was just like so thrown back

by what he was able to put together.

'Cause there's some CG,

there's a lot of stuff that I wouldn't understand or know

what the film to look like

and how it would actually come together.

So seeing that, wow, that's a filmmaker.

[wistful music]

That film doesn't really have a lot of a green screen

ultimately. Really?

Yeah, 'cause anytime there was a real big effect

with the big pod, you know, alien pods,

that was in the big giant fields

and they would just be able to place that

because it's such a giant landscape, you know?

There's no green screen that big.

It was huge, huge area.

When it came to inside and climbing up.

I mean, there was a whole set built for, you know,

the whole walkup and all that stuff,

so there's this whole set.

So I didn't have to imagine too much.

You know, the screen was like a big screen.

We'd have to look at like X's.

We're not seeing the actual aliens dance around.

They did have actually puppeteers with long poles

just to create movement for our eyeline

that would move around if they're coming in and out

of those foggy shadows, right?

That was nice 'cause it was interactive

'cause there was kind of a puppeteer

to that we could both follow with our eyelines.

What we do for a living,

sometimes the person's not even there

when we have to have a scene with them

or it's a tennis ball or it's a green screen

or it's a you're there, but you're supposed to be the Hulk.

[Ian] So what are we gonna call them?

[Louise] I don't know.

I was thinking Abbott and Costello.

[tense music]

Yeah. Yeah?

Yeah, I like it.

[tense music]

[alien rustling]

I like it.

[Ian] Wow.

[upbeat music]

American Hustle.

That's a very different departure,

and also with a very different kind of filmmaker.

Tremendous cast.

You're shooting a movie that's lit for 360 shooting,

so it's not any typical kind of filmmaking.

I remember running from the camera a lot

'cause it's just...

I mean, literally I ran offset and I'd run to the bathroom

just so I could just get off camera

and stop, you know, performing

'cause you just never know when you're on camera.

You just always gotta be in it at all time

and you start making up lines.

And I was in a character, you know, playing a politician

and I only had so much that I could sort of like,

you know, do that's not written or scripted

and I had to sort of like, you know, riff on.

He's gonna grow our tax base

and create thousands and thousands of jobs for everyone.

You understand that?

You know what that means?

To Irving.

[Partygoers] To Irving!

[glasses clinking]

Come on, this guy right here, he's got a big heart. [taps]

Just hate it if it didn't work out.

What do you mean?

Of course it's gonna work out, Irv.

Come on, guys like you and me, come on, man, right?

We dream and we build.

We never give up. We never quit.

After like 10 minutes of riffing I'm like, Okay, I'm out.

I'm tapped out. I got nothing left to say.

And really go off and just walk off set,

and they'd follow me with the camera into the bathroom.

I go back, I'm like, Dude, we're a craft services.

You can't [beep] film me here.

I mean, it was like just so crazy.

But there's something very kinetic

about that style of filmmaking and very alive,

which is fine.

And David O. Russell, he just has such a big heart

and smartness to what he does,

and it's always very character driven.

Great characters and a ton of great actors

and a great director,

and you know, it was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun.

[upbeat music]

The Bourne Legacy.

Yeah, I was a fan of those films,

and getting the opportunity to do that, you know,

it's kind of the opposite of like Marvel

or those kinds of action films because it's all very real.

It still felt like, shooting Bourne Legacy,

like it was a small, little independent film.

There was only a few...

It was me and Rachel Weisz,

or it was just me,

or it's just, you know, one dude or three dudes I'd beat up

and then move on.

It's a very small sort of feeling,

except for a few big action set pieces,

but it's very, you know, close kind of filming.

Not like, you know, trying to grab big vistas.

You know, it's very, very, very boots-on-the-ground,

very, very in-your-face type of filmmaking.

I love that process 'cause, you know,

we can move fast and get things done.

And you don't wanna hurry up and wait,

we just hurry up and get it done,

we just kept moving 'cause there's not a lot of things

we had to worry about.

It's just about me running across this wire.

Okay, do I have the wire hooked up here?

And da da da, do all these things.

You gotta learn all those amazing things.

I was already prepared because of my experience

like with Tom Cruise and teaching me,

understanding that this is a different part of the job,

but a very, very thing you take serious.

And a lot of training.

Eight hours a day for five months,

and it was a lot of work.

[suspenseful music]

[gun firing]

That was a oner, so I had...

It's like a three-story building,

coming from a basement, had to parkour up the thing, go up.

It was a whole thing.

Did that 18 times.

And I had a harness on with a small pick in case I got tired

to, you know, one of the times,

'cause it's got to be all fluid

and it all had to be like with the camera,

all a oner, right?

Ended up using the second take.

But I was like, Ah, I feel like I could do a better.

But I did it like 18 times and it's exhausting,

but it was 'cause all a oner.

So many things were variables with the camera movement

and the thing and me movement

and making sure it was all in focus

and to come into the thing and then shoot the guy down

at the bottom of the stairs, right?

It's a very specific thing.

But, you know, it was a fun thing to communicate

with camera guy and the guy on the wire

and the thing to all make it work,

but they used the second take, you know?

But whatever, that's my job.

I'm the one that kept asking for another take anyway, so.

[rocket whooshing]

[rocket exploding]

That was a ratchet,

and sometimes it's just a couple of guys yanking on ya

and enough to pull.

They may have done one, if it's a longer wide shot,

they may have used one where they'll use an actual

like machine or some sort of compression thing

for a big yank.

The water in that scene, that you cannot fake.

That was like below freezing water.

That was brutal.

Just coming out of the water,

and by the time I got to the edge,

there's icicles that formed on my beard

before I got out of that water.

It was crazy.

And they were real? Oh yeah.

And again, that's where it's like another oner

waiting for the helicopter shot,

getting out of the water and the whole thing.

And it's like, All right, let's do another one

while I'm still ready and freezing to go again, you know?

It was pretty cool.

A lot of challenges for that kind of stuff.

[upbeat music]

Wind River.

You know, the big impetus for Taylor to write Wind River,

I mean, 'cause it's about two tribes at Wind River,

and this is one specific thing,

but it's something that happens often.

That's the big kind of umbrella theme

and something that a lot of people don't know

and creating some light on that.

There's not a lot of policing, it's not a thing,

it's a cultural thing that happens,

and then it's tragic as all hell, right?

But then we still have to tell our story,

and this is a character that, unlike Dahmer,

was very, very close to me.

I live in that kind of environment.

Everything about that guy is very, very similar to me,

you know, in physical ways, in moral ways,

very, very close, right?

And then you're talking about, you know,

death of young girls and that type of thing,

and then also Cory, you know, like the character I played,

lost his child.

It was pretty intense, it was a lot to handle,

and it was good that that character held a lot

close to his vest, you know?

He was just a man of action and not a lot of words.

And it is nice to have Lizzie, you know,

someone that I was comfortable with already

just in the acting world, and she's terrific.

It was a very difficult time.

If you can make it to that highway, you're a free man.

Where, where's the highway?

You know how far that drill camp was

from where I found Natalie's body?

Six miles, barefoot.

That's a warrior.

That's a warrior.

You? You may make 600 feet.

I think we were about 12,000 feet elevation.

That was beautiful, beautiful vista.

But yeah, we had to be kind of harnessed in for a lot

just for the safety.

We had very little places to shoot up there,

and it was a big scene, you know?

Actually, that actor's in where I'm working,

worked with for Mayor of Kingstown, that same actor.

It's funny, we just spoke together

about that scene recently.

So funny it's fresh in my brain.

[upbeat music]

Mayor of Kingstown.

How was Ed?

Um, Tim Weaver's nephew got hooked.

Mailed a letter to some low-level Crip.

I don't know if it was sanctioned.

[suspenseful music] [birds cawing]

[chuckles] [beep] Mondays.

Yeah, that's a departure from what Taylor's written

in the past where it's usually more rural

and, you know, cowboy or just kind of with the land.

This is in a very urban prison town.

But what Taylor always does is he writes very truthful,

raw, you know, it's not always pleasant

and that's where it's very truthful,

it's very poetic, it's very tender as it is violent.

So that can be expected,

but it's just now set in a prison town

where the business of incarceration is the only business.

And I play a character called the Mayor, Mike McLusky,

who is the grease that lubricates the whole engine

of that prison town and the process of it,

from the prisoners, to the guards,

to all around in and out of that town.

He's a good guy.

He can do bad shit to you, though. [laughs]

Yeah, he'll do whatever it takes to keep the peace.

Yeah, he's not a bad guy at all.

He's a very selfless guy,

which is pretty admirable, I think.

[Interviewer] Awesome. I'm excited to see it.

Yeah, yeah. Me too. [chuckles]