Last week, producers confirmed that Matt Damon is maybe/probably returning to the Jason Bourne franchise. Damon was celebrated in the Bourne role, and many of us were upset that he refused to return for a fourth installment several years ago. That was the whole reason producers got Jeremy Renner to take over as another Bourne-like assassin in the same program. I felt like I was one of the only people who liked The Bourne Legacy, and I’ve been hoping that they would make another one with Renner. And that might happen – read this (MESSY) Hollywood Reporter story and tell me what the hell is going on with the Bourne franchise. It sounds like they might make TWO Bourne movies, one with Matt Damon and one with Renner. What the hell?
I do wonder if Renner really wants his own franchise all to himself though. Despite the fact that Robert Downey Jr. is trying to get Hawkeye his own franchise (yeah, no), Jeremy seems content to be a team player and work consistently in a wide array of projects. His latest film is Kill the Messenger, which comes out on October 10th. It’s the true story of a journalist who uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and he was basically destroyed by the American government because of it. Renner sat down for an interview with Page Six’s Cindy Adams:
Jeremy Renner, white-hot nova from “The Hurt Locker,” shines again. It’s “Kill the Messenger.” Not a musical. So why never do something light and frothy?
“I want to. I can. I grew up as a singer. Listen, in the old days James Cagney played tough shoot-’em-up bad guys plus song-and-dance musicals. So, don’t give up on me.”
“But this is about a real guy whose style I had to learn. A father and husband, which is special to him, but he’s an investigative reporter. It’s relative now. Big media heat today about whistle blowing and truth-seeking. My guy’s job is his life. He’s brave enough — and stupid enough — to slide into dark rabbit holes in search of truth. Then comes this amazing man’s shameful, tragic, sad mistreatment. What happens when you ruffle feathers and uncover drug money and what’s illegal. I won’t look for love in Washington with this because you can’t do truth now. You make enemies, not friends.”
“Y’know, I’d love someday to do Broadway, but no time. My workload’s heavy. I haven’t two free weeks on this planet. Look, I don’t watch TV, haven’t been to a movie theater in years, can’t catch a Broadway show, and only saw ‘Hurt Locker’ once.”
So who are you, where’d you come from?
“I’m easygoing, lived in New York’s East Village for a minute, which I loved. Spring or fall, no better place on the planet. I left because it’s not always spring or fall. Starting out I worked as a department store makeup artist. Listen, it beat bartending. And most important thing in my life is my daughter. I’m 43, one of seven kids. Since I’m 12 I’ve been changing diapers.”
I always forget that Renner comes from such a big family. He probably is a great dad to daughter Ava Berlin – I imagine him being very hands-on, but who knows? At least he’ll be able to show Ava how to do her makeup when the time comes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the reasons I love Renner. He’s delightfully weird but I love a man who honestly believes that doing makeup in a department store is a better gig than bartending. I LOVE HIM.
As for Kill the Messenger… it’s such an interesting story. I really want to see this movie!!
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
He was a makeup artist? Well, that explains the guy liner.
I wonder if he does his own makeup. Probably.
I came here to make that exact same statement, word for word.
You’re not the only one Kaiser. I loved him in Bourne Legacy too! He was a good action hero and I thought he was pretty sexy in it.
Me too. Matt Damon has never done it for me, almost but not quite sexy as Bourne; a good actor but no woof factor in anything else. Renner is nowhere near as pretty, but he does dangerous sexy really well.
Me three! Someone once said he looks like a wet pug and now I can’t unsee it but he was sexy in Bourne Legacy. I love the subtle signs of affection – holding hands on that motorcycle ride. Ahhhh
I was a bartender for a while. I loved it. I worked for a really macho, sexist guy and he would let the men work the restaurant tables and get the tips and wanted the women to just clean up. No joke. I liked to occasionally get “stuck” bartending when we were short handed. I got great tips and loved just listening to people (and eavesdropping *hehe*) Needless to say I quit working for this dipshi* and last I heard he got punched in the face by someone that was quitting.
Sorry for the ramble. LOL
He reminds me of a Pug dog. Kinda cute but not.
Ha! That is a perfect analogy. Perfect.
Hehehehehe. So true…
I love lots of love for Renner, he’s like the eternal underdog for whom you root. Seems like he lived 9 lives before he hit the big leagues.
I always thought of a slim bulldog. I think Pug works better.
He was also either a stylist or interior designer to pay the bills before he started getting parts. Man, I miss The Unusuals. That was a great show.
I seem to remember a ski instructor too. I’d ski with him. He’d have to go back to being an instructor though; I kinda suck.
This is the main reason I like him as well as the actor. He gets a job in a department store and not in a bar so he can work mainly at the weekends and be free for filming jobs during the week and stage work in the evenings. As soon as he gets a decent acting contract he takes it to a bank as security for a mortgage and from there builds a multimillion dollar property business BEFORE he breaks through as an actor . So many actors these days come from rich families, they may be talented, but they can live quite comfortably while they suffer for their craft and then they have the advantage of all those connections that come from wealth and position. Renner may be a bit rough around the edges, but he is talented, smart, determined and from what everyone in the business says about him, a really nice guy. I like him.
I have a deep and abiding love for Jeremy Renner. I hope he does get another Bourne movie, I thought he was great!
I’ll have to sit myself down and watch it. I was anti-Renner because I was a Damon purist. He just seems like a cool guy and many people have said that he did a great job in Legacy.
+1
I didn’t check it out either because I don’t think anyone one can match Matt Damon’s Bourne. Perhaps I will, one day. But not today, LOL.
I prefer the Damon ones but Legacy was fine and Renner did a good job with it. I wouldn’t mind seeing another one with him and Rachel.
I adore Renner , but Legacy wasn’t anywhere near as good as the first three. I don’t put that down to Renner though, he was very good, but the director just didn’t get the pacing right and the script wan’t right for an action film. I would give it 3/5 overall, but the others are 4/5.
i like him a lot, will def see the movie on netflix (haven’t been to the movies in well over 2 years, nothing against renner as an actor). as an aside, i had no idea that james cagney did musicals – i’ve only seen him in film noir.
Watch Yankee Doodle Dandy. Cagney is fantastic.
And while Renner may not have thought if it during the interview, we do have a modern day equivalent, Hugh Jackman.
You’re so right! Hugh Jackman is so freaking talented, and not many can match him.
I do love Jeremy Renner, though. He’s a really gifted actor and I thought he did a fantastic job in The Bourne Legacy (I love the Damon ones more, but still…). And he kind of got overshadowed by his co-stars in American Hustle, but I thought he was just great as they were. Yup, love him. 😉
@smcollins – I actually felt it was Renner who delivered the BEST performance in the movie. And that’s saying a lot, because Renner is not one of my favorites and Amy Adams and Christian Bale are (who were also both great).
It was a shame he was overshadowed for Supporting Actor accolades. B Cooper’s performance was the worst.
I love Renner for some reason. Come do my makeup! Can we have a beer sometime? His marvel interviews with Scarlett J. Are awesome too. He brings out the best in her.
He has done a few films here in Boston and has hung out at a bar I frequent. He hasn’t been there when I was there but the bartenders say he’s a great guy, normal and funny.
Count me on the Bourne Legacy love. I want another movie too. Damon & Greenberg were being asses, and now are coming back like they are the second coming. That’s fine, but jeez, could have done this years’ ago and transitioned the franchise properly.
Jeremy is a good guy, and doesn’t seem to care if he’s a megastar or not. He just wants to work.
@The Original Mia, who wrote: “Count me on the Bourne Legacy love. I want another movie too. Damon & Greenberg were being asses, and now are coming back like they are the second coming. That’s fine, but jeez, could have done this years’ ago and transitioned the franchise properly.”
It’s more complicated than that. Both Damon and Greengrass were given script approval for the 4th Jason Bourne film, which couldn’t be an original script because Robert Ludlum’s Estate wouldn’t allow it (they own the Jason Bourne character). The Estate wanted Universal to choose one of Ludlum’s earlier books to re-make into a Jason Bourne film. I forget the name of the book they chose, but neither Damon or Greengrass liked the first script. By the time George Nolfi wrote a second script, both Damon and Greengrass, who had cleared their work schedules for a whole year for a 4th Bourne film project, had moved on to those projects they’d put on hold. George Nolfi–who wrote and directed “The Adjustment Bureau” starring Damon and Emily Blunt–said during a PR tour for “TAB” when asked that he ‘did’ turn in a Jason Bourne script and Universal has it. That may well be the script Damon and Greengrass will film, but who knows? Perhaps the Robert Ludlum Estate has consented to let them use the character in an original script after all.
Neither Damon nor Greengrass were very impressed with Tony Gilroy and didn’t want to suffer through another ‘re-write as we film’ horror like they did with “The Bourne Ultimatum” (they hired three writers to re-write the script Gilroy turned in because ‘he’ refused to do any re-writes). They were literally getting pages of script from one of the three writers–Scott Z. Burns, George Nolfi, and I forget the name of the third one–right before filming a scene. Then Gilroy threw a fit because they weren’t going to list him in the writing credits, which explains why the others are listed as well and Gilroy is listed separately for the ‘screen story.’
The bad blood evidently works both ways, too. In the “Bourne Legacy” script, Tony and Dan Gilroy deliberately changed the ending of “The Bourne Ultimatum” film (I’m still wondering why Universal allowed them to do that). That screwed the Jason Bourne franchise if Greengrass would have wanted to continue any of the plot lines he left open (Pamela Landy, Nicky Parsons, Noah Vosen, etc.) or even the fact that Jason Bourne had been revealed to be David Webb, whom the CIA would have probably been more relunctant to chase and terminate in light of all that had come to light at the end of Ultimatum.
Universal hasn’t said that there won’t be any more Aaron Cross films. But with Damon and Greengrass now both back on board to continue the Jason Bourne franchise, there probably won’t be any more connection to Jason Bourne in the Aaron Cross storyline (I sincerely hope not!).
Kill the Messenger looks really good! Is it expected to do well/be an awards contender? It seem like it should but I haven’t seen anything about it until now which isn’t a good sign with the release so soon.
I, too, loved The Bourne Legacy and I thought Renner was great in it. He’s an interesting dude, for sure, and a hell of an actor.
Looking forward to Kill the Messenger.
There were some super sketchy rumors when his (ex)girlfriend got pregnant, about him trying to get her to get rid of it, then give it up for adoption, then take a payout to not name him as the father. One of the professional drivers my company uses in car commercials is one of Renner’s stunt men and he said once that the whole situation was super messy for a long time, like the reason for the several-month-delay between the birth of his daughter and the confirmation of the birth was that he made them undergo two separate DNA tests conducted by two separate labs, since the mother refused an amniotic test during pregnancy. I tend to believe that, since Jeremy Renner is pretty popular around Los Angeles (been working forever and knows everyone), and it’s not often you hear bad stories about him. There were *so* many rumors for about a year that it made me think while the situation might not have been that dire, there was probably some fire under that smoke.
The woman moved into his house before the birth. Wasn’t she an ex-gf?
She was? Then she wasn’t? Now maybe she is again? She still lives with him, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from enjoying other ladies. Who knows what their arrangement is, but it isn’t traditional, whatever that really means anyway.
Algernon, I am not casting any doubt on what you are saying except to point out that there was only about a 48 hour delay between the baby being born and an official statement being issued. That is actually about the minimum time required for a rush DNA test, so it doesn’t negate what you said. Of course they might just have waited until they were back home before issuing the statement. He seemed pretty miserable at the time, but now he seems to be very happy so I guess whatever happened they managed to sort it out.
I got the impression from the Avengers PR hoopla that Jeremy, in common with so many of us, had a Hiddlescrush. A difficult condition to treat. I like Jeremy, more interesting than so many identikit leading-ish men. I am in a minority of approximately one when I say I enjoyed Hansel and Gretel with him and the lovely Gemma Arterton. Totally bonkers but good fun.
@Lisa
I might be thinking of the lapse between when everyone in LA knew he’d knocked a chick up and the public getting wind of it, I have a terrible sense of relativity and tend to think all things happened during the same week. Anyway, it does seem to have worked out in the end. I tend to think he’d just settled into confirmed bachelor ways and then it took him a while to warm up to the idea of new priorities, but now that he’s there, he’s doing okay.
Algernon
I think you are probably right. Perhaps a bit scared that he would make a mess of it too, not uncommon when your parents divorce when you are young and lead you through a maze of step parents and special friends.
I work in a department store as a makeup artist and I have never met a straight, male makeup artist in my entire life in the last three years, not saying they don’t exist, but it makes me wonder about him. I don’t care either way, I like him enough as an actor.
He totally sets my gaydar pinging!!! And just for the record, I could not care less, if the man is gay, bi, or straight…I’m not that crazy about him as an actor! I think his best work was in The Town…
He was fantastic in The Town and, importantly for this Bostonian, nailed the townie accent.
Me too, always has, but the clincher for me was seeing/reading how aggressively defensive he is about the rumors.
I would love a Hawkeye movie, but it should be based on Fraction’s Hawkeye run, which isn’t about him being a super hero at all. So not a big bombastic superhero movie, but a kind of indie action-comedy of the two Hawkeyes (the other is called Kate) and Lucky the Pizza Dog and their daily misadventures. I’d watch the hell out of that.
Hawkeye is such a lame superhero, in my opinion!
Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye run, which is ending this year, makes a great case for why Hawkeye *isn’t* lame. The movies just haven’t done anything with the character yet. Hopefully Avengers 2 makes better use of him. It’s such a waste to have a good actor who is also good at performing stunts playing Clint Barton and not have him kicking all kinds of ass.
Spring and Fall are the best anywhere. I liked The Hurt Locker, but I don’t think he has been in anything else yet that lived up to that promise.
I love him too, I wouldn’t mind seeing a Hawkeye franchise.. on the contrary, I would totally love it.
I am not the least bit surprised by this news. What I ‘do’ find surprising is how many wise women at this site don’t see it/haven’t figured it out.
Go to LA. Visit the Chateau Marmont on any given night when Renner’s in town. Watch him take home ladies. Maybe he’s bi, who really knows, but I have seen that guy pick up women. And he definitely has a type: young, trashy and tall.
Exactly. Dude likes women. Maybe he likes guys too, but I’ve seen that picture of his hand up a bar girl’s dress. I doubt it was just to keep his fingers warm.
That description definitely fits his baby mama and also the actress from Mistresses he went out with for 4 or 5 years before The Hurt Locker, Jess something.
John Travolta has been in relationships with women his entire life. I’m just saying.
@Emma
Yeah, and Travolta keeps getting busted with men. Renner keeps getting busted with women.
@Algernon, who wrote: “Yeah, and Travolta keeps getting busted with men. Renner keeps getting busted with women.”
Renner has been busted with men, too. Remember what started that bar fight in Thailand?
I’m not really into Matt Damon although I do love the Bourne movies. Jeremy on the other hand…there’s something about him. I would love to see a Hawkeye franchise!