JEREMY RENNER
BEYOND HAWKEYE
By Kirsten Howard
Jeremy Renner is currently in the enviable position of leading two major TV series on different streaming platforms: Hawkeye and Mayor of Kingstown.
Born in Modesto, California in 1971, Jeremy Renner is the oldest of seven siblings, and was bitten by the acting bug in junior college.
Renner was originally studying computer science and criminology at Modesto Junior College, but happened to take a drama class as an elective. That’s when he decided to pursue acting.
The young hopeful made his feature film debut as an underachieving student in the critically mauled 1995 comedy, National Lampoon's Senior Trip.
He’d spend a long time paying his dues in Hollywood by getting regular guest roles in TV shows and supporting parts in various movies. But it was a long time before he got his big break.
That came with Kathryn Bigelow’s 2009 Iraq war thriller The Hurt Locker, where he snagged the lead role of Sergeant William James.
The film won Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards, and Renner was nominated for Best Actor, a trick he repeated with his performance in Ben Affleck's The Town in 2010.
In 2011 Renner joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in a cameo as skilled archer and SHIELD agent Clint Barton in Thor, the first installment of the God of Thunder’s ongoing franchise.
Barton, codenamed Hawkeye, is not a superhero, but he is an expert marksman and tactician who has a family back home to protect when he’s not out saving the world.
Renner has since reprised the role of Hawkeye in The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Endgame, and animated Disney+ series What If...?.
As one of the few remaining OG Avengers, Renner’s archer now has his very own live-action Disney+ series, called Hawkeye.
The show sees him “passing the bow and arrow” to an enthusiastic prodigy, Kate Bishop, in a story that has been liberally plucked from the pages of Marvel Comics.
Renner currently has two big TV series releasing at the same time, as he also plays the central role of Mike McLusky in Paramount+’s Mayor of Kingstown.