Hawkeye Star Jeremy Renner Shares Emotional Reason Why He Loves Being in the Marvel Family

This May will mark 14 years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began with Iron Man. Over the course of the last decade, the MCU had grown into one of the biggest movie franchises of all time, and so many stars have joined Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) as heroes. One such actor is Jeremy Renner, who first appeared as Clint Barton/Hawkeye in 2010’s Thor. Renner ended up becoming one of the original six Avengers in 2012 alongside Downey Jr., Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), and Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/Hulk). During a recent chat with the Armchair Expert podcast (via The Direct), Renner opened up about the bond he shares with the other original Avengers.

“The greatest thing that ever came from the last 11 years of the Marvel world for me, or even all of us, is the original A6 that have been along the whole journey. There’s been marriages and divorces, and kids being born, and a lot of shifts and changes in our personal lives as well as our acting lives that we all shared together in a very specific way,” Renner shared. “All of them, they’re like family to me. You can’t replace that or quantify it, and we all got tattoos together just to symbolize our bond and love.”

In a previous chat with ComicBook.com‘s Brandon Davis, Renner shared a similar sentiment and talked about the ongoing Avengers group chat. 

“Just because you die on camera doesn’t mean you die in real life, so we have a group chat and it’s all of us, some that are still alive and dead on screen,” Renner explained. “Yeah, we’re all very, very good friends, and we don’t really speak too much about our job, and that’s what’s also great about being, you know, Avenger friends, you know. We speak about our kids. You know what I mean? We speak about our kids and, you know, divorces and marriages and house building. We speak about just our life stuff, you know?” He added, “Our friendship is very, very special and very unique, and I love them. I love them.”

Renner was last seen in the Disney+ series Hawkeye, which came to an end last month. Recently, Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, spoke about Hawkeye and revealed he hopes it will become a Christmas classic.

“I love the idea of it being a perennial that people can check out every holiday season,” Feige shared. “I love that it’s debuting just before Thanksgiving, it concludes just before Christmas. For the first time, you get a title Avenger on Disney+, which is great. Jeremy Renner, of course, is the best, and he’s the reason to do it. Thankfully, Hailee [Steinfeld] wanted to work with him, so we got her to play Kate Bishop, and it’s that pairing that I think is gonna make for very happy holidays.” 

All six episodes of Hawkeye are now streaming on Disney+.