Jeremy Renner assisted his Marvel colleague Simu Liu in kicking off the 2024 People’s Choice Awards.
Over a year after a severe snow plow incident that critically injured Renner, he appeared on stage at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, this Sunday to present the first award of the night.
“Gotta say, it feels good to be back,” said Renner, aged 53, as he received a big applause from the audience.
“This year’s been a heck of a journey, and I’m happy to be here with you, the fans. You guys are the best. You really brought it this year. You broke records. You turned movies into movements. We heard you all loud and clear; we heard you.”
Renner, who is a father to his 10-year-old daughter Ava, then proceeded to introduce the nominees for TV performance of the year.
“Right now, I get the privilege of celebrating the most powerful movie performances on screen,” Renner added. “So, are you ready for the first award of the night?”
Renner declared that Billie Eilish outperformed Adjoa Andoh from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, Ayo Edebiri from The Bear, Jon Hamm from The Morning Show, Matt Bomer in Fellow Travelers, Meryl Streep from Only Murders in the Building, Steven Yeun from Beef, and Storm Reid from The Last of Us with her role in Swarm.
As Eilish, aged 22, approached the stage to receive her award, Renner retreated and embraced his Avengers colleague, Tom Hiddleston, who had earlier given him a standing ovation, before making his way behind the scenes.
Hiddleston, aged 43, later accepted the award for the year’s best sci-fi/fantasy show for Loki.
Following a life-threatening snow plow accident on January 1, 2023, which resulted in over 30 broken bones, Renner was hospitalized for more than two weeks and underwent several surgeries.
Renner revealed last month that he feels “blessed” today. “I certainly got a lot of callousness squashed out of me by that machine,” he said.
“I’ve never been bitter, but always maybe a little more callous, a bit tougher. And I just think those calluses are just scraped off me at this point. Literally, I feel pretty open and wonderfully sensitive and youthful.”
The Oscar nominee attributed his recovery motivation to the support of his family and friends.
“Everything kind of just went right,” Renner said. “Obviously, I had a lot of tenacity, a lot of support, a lot of reasons to recover. That is really special. There are a lot of people who don’t have as much, [don’t have] those things to live for.”
Renner humorously noted that he “didn’t realize that many people cared about me that much.”
“Maybe Hawkeye, they did,” he added, referring to his Marvel character. “[But] just me as a person, it’s a different thing, you know what I mean?”
Earlier this year, Renner commemorated the anniversary of his ICU discharge with a heartfelt Instagram message.
“I was reminded that love, goodwill, hard work, and a legion of good humans are getting me through every day … thank you, bless you,” he wrote on Jan. 16. “And as always, I hold my promise to be better, be stronger, and grow to surpass potential…. Bless you all.”
