Jeremy Renner Says He's 'Accepted' That He'll Be in 'Recovery' for 'the Rest of My Life' (Exclusive) (2024)

For Jeremy Renner, recovery is going to be a lifelong pursuit.

The Mayor of Kingstown star, 53, was critically injured in a snow plow accident in January 2023, and while he’s made miraculous improvements in his health and wellness in the year and a half since, Renner says the recovery “label” isn’t going away.

“I had to accept it for the rest of my life. There'll be nothing normal or as it was prior to the accident,” he tells PEOPLE while discussing his partnership with Brooks Running. "By the way, I'm okay with that. It's making my life better. I'm healthier because of it."

"I get to focus more on my health and well-being than I ever did before because I have to," he adds. "Recovery will be until I'm out of this old hot mess of a body. It was a way for me to really accept that it is going to be forever."

Renner washelping a family member get a stuck vehicleout of the estimated three feet of snowfall from the night before when he was run over by a 14,300-lb. snowplow on Jan. 1, 2023. The Marvel actor broke more than 30 bones and subsequently underwent multiple surgeries following the accident.

Though he's come to terms with his recovery being a "forever" process, Renner says in the immediate aftermath of what he refers to as “the incident,” he was hoping the opposite would be true about his recovery.

Despite that, he remembers the moment he overheard his physical therapist delivering the news to his mother — and the moment he decided to "change the perspective" and propel himself forward.

“I wasn't in the room. [My physical therapist] said what I didn't want him to say, which is like, 'This is f—-ing forever,” recalls Renner. “So I just manned up, chin up, let's go. Here we go. That's how we do it."

"We just change the perspective of it and let it be," he continues. "At least I like wellness and taking care of yourself, for the most part. I think it's a pretty good thing.”

A key part of Renner’s recovery has been movement and learning how to walk and eventually run again. The actor says that his Brooks Running shoes have played a huge role in his ability to be as comfortable as possible while getting back into the swing of things.

“It helped me get a positive perspective on my joints. There was a lot of cushioning in these dang shoes, and it did really help!” he says. “[Brooks] has this ‘let's run there’ attitude, which is really kind of symbolic of both of my journey of recovery and where that is for anybody, because it's not specific to me — everyone has got their own journey. Everybody's got their own obstacles. I'm glad to be along for the ride.”

For Renner, being able to move comfortably was crucial, especially when he resumed acting and returned to the setof his Paramount+ seriesMayor of Kingstownin early 2024 to film its third season.

In January, Renner opened up to PEOPLE about the nerves involves with getting back to work on the series, which recentlyannouncedits new season will premiere June 2.

"I don't know if I'm looking forward to it. Again, I try to just do everything kind of step by step here.That's one foot in front of the other one," he said at the time. "Then you're walking, I think I'm excited when I'm there and I get in a rhythm there. I'm excited about the character and, of course, all the people involved and all that in the storyline, but for me, I'm just tentative of confidence in work."

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Season 3 ofMayor of Kingstownpremieres Sunday, June 2 on Paramount+.