-It's always great to see you, buddy.
-It's nice to be back. This is awesome.
-And look at you on the cover of "Men's Health"
just rocking it out.
-Yeah. -[ Cheers and applause ]
-"Jeremy Renner just won't stop."
You're unstoppable. -Yeah.
-Did this guy know that he was unstoppable?
He's gonna be unstoppable one day?
-[ Laughs ] -Look at that guy.
-Yeah, that's the first headshot I ever did.
-It is? -Yeah, yeah.
-That's not bad for a first headshot.
-Yeah, I figured, you know, all you got to do for a headshot
is take a picture of your head, so I got that right.
-[ Laughs ] Yeah, you nailed that part.
-Yeah. -Did this guy get roles?
-Yeah, then I got my first job out of that headshot.
-Did you really?
-Yeah, it was "National Lampoon's Senior Trip."
-Oh, yeah! I do remember that. Absolutely. No way.
I always liking the ear piercing I was looking at.
Not bad. -Yeah.
-[ Light laughter ] -That's a nice one there.
Do you remember getting your ear pierced?
Where'd you -- -Yeah, well, I don't know.
I think I got -- Well, I think -- I did two.
One I got, like, at the mall, like, at the Forever thing.
-21 or Claire's? -Or The Wet Puma.
-Whatever those things -- Yeah, exactly.
-Whatever those stores were. -Yeah, I remember those.
-But I did one with a potato and one of those --
What do you call it? The safety pins.
-No! -Yeah, and some ice.
And didn't work out so well, so that's why I think
I went to the mall.
-So you just numbed it and then --
-Yeah, yeah. -How is the potato involved?
-To kind of give you support, and you pop it through.
It's not -- It wasn't a good thing.
Didn't work out very well.
-Wow. Oh, I see. So you puncture your ear,
and it goes in the potato instead of your finger.
-Yeah, it was a bad idea. -Wow. But you got the gig.
-And I got the headshot. -Yeah, you got the headshot.
I want to talk to you. We have a lot to talk about.
But "Mayor of Kingstown." The show has been a huge hit.
It's the number-one scripted show on Paramount+.
It's a giant -- Congratulations. -It's nice.
-Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty good.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-You know what I noticed? Weirdly enough, your character,
who's very different than Hawkeye --
you use a bow and arrow in this show, as well.
-Yeah, yeah. I don't know why --
I mean, I was really telling them not to do it
'cause I had to, like -- -Are you typecast now?
You have to have a bow and arrow?
-"Guys, as soon as I pick this up, it's like..."
-Yeah, it's like --
You can't pick up Captain America's shield.
-"What is this thing? How do you use it?"
-Yeah. -I, like, really had to --
-You had to act like you didn't know --
never shot one before. -Yeah, yeah, but it's the same
thing as most of the [bleep] I do in life --
act like I do know what I'm doing...
-And get away with it. -And get away with it.
-That's what acting is. -It's my job.
-Exactly, yeah.
But Taylor Sheridan is the creator on this one.
Also creator of "Yellowstone." -"Yellowstone." Yeah, yeah.
And we did a movie "Wind River" together.
And, yeah, he's a pretty amazing writer.
-Well, can you tell everyone
what "Mayor of Kingstown" is all about?
-Yeah, it takes place in a fictitious town in Michigan,
and it's essentially a prison town,
and the only business there is incarceration.
So it's either inside the prison,
outside the prison, everything is about this prison.
And I play the Mayor of Kingstown.
It's really not the official mayor.
And he is sort of the grease between all the wheels
to ensure that he keeps the peace in town.
And it's -- it comes at you pretty hard.
-Yeah. Did he just send you script
and say, "Jeremy, please, I think you'll be good for this"?
-Well, I did "Wind River" with him,
so I just said yes before I read anything.
-Oh, really? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-I love when that happens where you're just like,
"No, I just -- This guy does great stuff."
-Yeah. And it worked out great. It worked out great.
-Congratulations on that. And then "Hawkeye."
First two episodes comes out Wednesday on Disney+.
-Yeah. -People are freaking out.
-[ Cheers and applause ] -Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good times.
-You've done our show many years as Hawkeye.
-That's right, yeah. He came out and sang
and performed for you guys. It was pretty special.
-Yeah, I mean, you've come on by yourself,
but you've also come on with the other Avengers.
Do you miss doing press with the Avengers?
-Yeah, I do, man.
I mean, the last one we did was for "Endgame," I believe.
It was just Paul Rudd and I
talking about "50 Year Old Virgins,"
the movie that we could actually talk about.
But I miss old Paul Rudd. Hey, he's the sexiest man alive.
-That's right. He is. -How about my man Mr. Rudd?
-Who doesn't miss Paul Rudd?
-That's right. -But the whole crew.
You guys were all so nice and great to us.
I appreciate it. But all very talented.
Between you -- I was thinking of Scarlett Johansson, Cheadle.
And probably Rudd. He can sing.
-I'm sure he could slap the bass, right?
-Right? He could play bass guitar.
I think you should put together a band.
What if there was an Avengers band?
-Well, I don't know. You got the Roots.
What are you going to do with an Avengers band?
-Yeah, they're kind of the Avengers band right there.
But, yeah, you know --
Why not? We could always add...
We could always add more superheroes.
We can add more superheroes to the Roots.
-Yeah. -You're always welcome.
When you signed on to do Hawkeye,
did you have any clue that it would run this long
but then, also, turn into a TV show?
-No. I think there's ideas of that initially, but that's --
It was 11 years ago.
I'm like -- I remember one of my first thoughts.
This is like 2010, 2011.
I'm like, "I don't want to be 50 in tights!"
[ Laughter ]
Here I am 50 in tights!
[ Laughter ]
I'm like, "No one wants to see me at 50 in tights!"
-And it turns out -- -I guess they do.
-People really do, yeah. -I guess they really do.
-They want to see it.
More with Jeremy Renner when we come back.