Jeremy Renner Reflects on Near-Death Experience on ‘Fallon’

Jeremy Renner appeared on The Tonight Show for the first time since being involved in a horrific snowplow accident that led to a lengthy recovery process. Renner, who admitted he was “pretty banged up,” recalled host Jimmy Fallon texting him in the ICU to say “Dude, you’re trending!”

Fallon asked if the accident and recovery were hard to talk about, but Renner said, “No, I think it’s pretty cathartic. I think it’s quite healing.” He added that he didn’t realize how it became “other people’s story as it was mine,” including his whole family.

During the intense interview, Renner describes breaking 38 bones while trying to stop a runaway Sno-Cat from crushing his nephew. “It was brutal, dude,” he told Fallon, adding that one of his legs is now mostly metal, as is half his face and the entire right side of his back. Despite the pain and the fact that one of his eyes was hanging out of his head, Renner said he knew it was important to remain calm in the moment.

“There’s wonderful lessons in that, right?” Renner said. “I mean, I can go on and on about what happened for the 45 minutes of being on the ice, but the real learning lessons from it — there’s so many great gifts of being tested to your limits, right? Your physical limits, your spiritual limits, emotional limits. I won’t have a bad day for the rest of my life. It’s impossible. There’s that gift.”

He added, “But also the idea of learning how to not panic and how to focus. In order to walk, you have to put one foot down and then another foot in front of it. And then you’re walking. Just like breathing… I just had to breathe. If I didn’t breathe then I would have been gone. Forget the eyeball and all the titanium and the broken bones. It doesn’t matter, right? So to think of it step by step, I think, is a really great reminder of what we all should be looking at in life.”

Renner’s accident took place last January at his home in Nevada. The Hawkeye actor was left in critical condition, suffering chest trauma and other injuries. He shared his lengthy recovery on social media, updating fans throughout the process.

After months of physical therapy to fully recover from the accident, Renner admitted that he was nervous to return to work, but returned to film the forthcoming third season of Mayor of Kingstown, which premieres on June 2. “Hope this works out that I can ACTUALLY pull this off for our production and more importantly the fans,” he wrote on Instagram on his first day back on set.

During his appearance on The Tonight Show, Renner also played a few rounds of a game called “Egg Roulette” with Fallon, which basically involves smashing eggs on your head.