16 months ago Jeremy Renner was in a terrible accident with a snowplow that left the man with multiple broken bones and other extensive injuries. Over the last year, we’ve seen the Marvel actor make an absolutely staggering recovery. He’s kept fans appraised of his incredible progress on social media, but he’s also being honest with those fans that not every day is a step forward. He still struggles, though he knows how far he has come.
In a short video posted to his Instagram, we see Jeremy Renner working on the treadmill. He looks pretty good all things considered, moving at a steady pace, but in the caption to the video, he calls the day a “struggle day” and admits that days like this one, for they are not unique, can be discouraging.
There’s certainly no question that Jeremy Renner’s progress has been impressive. Considering how long he was in the hospital before he began his rehab, it’s only been a little over a year since he’s been able to do any work at all. Nobody would have been shocked if Renner was barely walking, never mind running, at this point. While yesterday may have been a tough day for him, it was likely still a lot better than it could have been.
On New Year’s Day 2023, Jeremy Renner was clearing snow from the road outside his home in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when the snowplow began to run on its own, toward a relative. Renner attempted to jump on board the machine to stop it and ended up underneath the massive plow. He spent the next several weeks in the hospital recovering and has been rehabbing his injuries ever since.
We often see this sort of rehab as continual forward progress, but Jeremy Renner reminds us that’s not always the case. He has good days and bad days, not unlike the rest of us. It sounds like there are still things he can’t quite do, or at least days where doing certain things is harder than others. This may be the state of things for him for a long time, possibly the rest of his life.
For a long time, it was unclear when Jeremy Renner would begin acting again, but it happened sooner than, most were probably thinking. In January he returned to work filming a new season of Mayor of Kingstown. At the time he admitted to not being sure he could do it. Clearly, while he was in good enough shape to do it, he was doing it while dealing with the lingering effects of his injuries.
At this point, we don’t really know what “normal” is going to look like for Renner. While he expressed interest in returning to the MCU down the road, we don’t know how much harder a role like that might be before him. Still, one clear thing is that the actor isn’t giving up. He’ll continue to work, despite the tough days.
