Mission: Impossible | Jeremy Renner’s character was going to be killed in Fallout, so he refused to return

The Bourne Legacy
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Jeremy Renner has revealed that he was asked to appear in 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout but refused when he found out his character was going to be killed off.


Long time appreciators of the Mission: Impossible franchise will probably remember that Jeremy Renner had a prominent role alongside Tom Cruise in two movies before mysteriously vanishing around the middle of the 2010s.

It turns out there’s a good reason for this: having previously appeared in 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and 2015’s Rogue Nation, Renner was invited to return as globe-trotting agent William Brandt for a third time in 2018’s Fallout. Then the actor discovered that the film’s plot would see his character killed off after just a few scenes, and so he flatly refused to appear.

As Renner revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via Variety):

“I remember they tried to bring me over[seas] for a week so they could kill my character, and I was like, ‘No, you don’t get to do that. You’re not going to drag me over there and just kill my character,’ like get out of here!” Renner said. “If you’re going to do this and you’re going to use my character, you’re going to do it right.”

Renner added that the pressures of being a father also made committing to another Mission: Impossible film difficult, since the way productions are written around Tom Cruise’s stunt set-pieces means actors frequently spend long stretches overseas.

“There’s no schedule, and I can’t go [abroad] for a year and a half,” Renner explained. “I don’t have the time to commit to that. Maybe now my daughter’s older, maybe there’s an opportunity to do something.”

Read more: Mission: Impossible 8 hits new delay thanks to submarine problems

Renner also managed to put a longstanding rumour to bed in the same interview. When asked whether it was true that Renner had been brought in as a potential fallback for Tom Cruise – a replacement lead should Cruise choose to bow out of the franchise, say – the actor said no.

“It was always Tom’s show, that would be a Tom decision, if he ever wanted to change that narrative,” Renner said. “And as he’s maturing as an actor, he kinda wants to hold on, he’s doing Top Gun again, right? He’s rebooting that, and let’s [lean] into the things in his life that he’s comfortable with now…the guy’s a beast and works harder than anyone I know.”

Elsewhere, Renner talked candidly about his recovery following a near-fatal accident last year, his return to the thriller series, Mayor Of Kingstown. You can find the full interview above.

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