Want an update about a superhero’s health? Ask another superhero. Heck, ask two of ‘em.
Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, who both co-starred with Jeremy Renner in “Avengers: Endgame,” are sharing updates on the Oscar-nominated actor’s health after his devastating snowplow accident in the Lake Tahoe area on New Year’s Day.
Rudd kept his answer tight, telling “Entertainment Tonight” at the Monday premiere of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” that he just talked with the “awesome” Renner a day prior. “He’s doing all right,” Rudd said. “He’s doing well.”
Lilly, who plays Wasp to Rudd’s Ant-Man in the new Marvel flick and was in “The Hurt Locker” with Renner, was a bit more forthcoming Tuesday with “Access Hollywood.”
“It’s a miracle. It’s a straight-up miracle,” she said of Renner’s recovery. During a recent visit to see him, Lilly said, she expected to sit at his bedside and hold the “Hawkeye” actor’s hand “while he moaned and groaned in pain and wasn’t able to move.” Much to her surprise, the 52-year-old was mobile.
Renner was in a wheelchair, “wheeling himself around, laughing with his friends,” she said.
Not bad, especially after breaking 30 bones when his 14,000-pound snowcat rolled over him after he and his adult nephew used it to free a snowbound truck. The snowcat had slipped and rolled and was heading toward the nephew; Renner, who had jumped out of the machine without setting the brake, tried to jump back on and stop it from hitting his nephew but didn’t make it into the cab. He was “pulled under the left side track” of the snowplow, the accident report said.
Despite Renner joking around with his friends, Lilly said the visit was intense.
“He had a near-death experience that was highly traumatic — and he was awake for the whole thing,” she said. She was blown away by things he told her he had seen and heard after the accident. But she shared no specific details.
While the hospital said Renner had suffered blunt force trauma and orthopedic injuries, a 911 call log was more descriptive. His nephew, who made the call, was screaming that the actor had been “run over.” Renner could be heard “moaning” in the background. He had been “completely crushed,” the log said, and was “bleeding heavily from his head and other [unknown] injuries. The nephew said he wasn’t sure where “all the blood” was coming from.
Two days later, Renner posted on social media that he was “too messed up to type.” The next week, his sister Kym Renner told People, “If anyone knows Jeremy, he is a fighter and doesn’t mess around. He is crushing all the progress goals. We couldn’t feel more positive about the road ahead.”
By Jan. 16, the actor was out of the hospital, hanging with his loved ones, dealing with the “brain fog in recovery” and taking a minute to watch the new season of his Paramount+ show “Mayor of Kingstown.”
Days later, after Renner shared a photo of his rehab work and told his fans how many bones where snapped, “Avengers” buddy Chris Evans sent a snarky response.
“That’s one tough mf’er,” Evans wrote. “Has anyone even checked on the snowcat???”
