Jeremy Renner reveals he dared Marvel to recast him when he took time off

If you’re a recurring fixture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially a founding member of the Avengers, then you’ll be required to jet all over the world to shoot various cameos in the franchise’s roster of projects to help join the dots.

However, when Jeremy Renner decided to take some time off when his daughter was born in 2013, he was warned by people close to him that Marvel might not take too kindly to an extended absence given that the connective tissue threading the mythology together is planned out years in advance.

Speaking to Men’s Health in a recent interview, the Hawkeye star admitted that he didn’t care in the slightest if he ended up losing his role as Clint Barton, because his family came first and foremost.

“It taught me how to have the nuts to say, ‘Everyone, f*ck off. It’s my time with my daughter’… I said, ‘Fine, recast me. I’m going to be here with my daughter’. It was pretty gnarly. Acting and everything else goes out the window, until my daughter says, ‘I want to hang out with my friends, and I don’t want to be around you so much, Daddy’.”

The actor didn’t make any appearances in the MCU between The Avengers and sequel Age of Ultron, although he did show up in six other movies during that timeframe, including American Hustle, The Bourne Legacy, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, so his absence from the screen clearly didn’t have an adverse affect on his career when all of the aforementioned projects were either critical or commercial favorites.