Jeremy Renner has previously spoken out about the fact that he was a little unhappy with how his character was portrayed in the first Avengers film but did you know that he kept faking his death at the end of every scene, in the hopes that Marvel would just decide to kill his character off? Speaking at London Film and Comic-Con, Renner told the crowd---
"I never really told anybody this but in the first Avengers… I was just getting to know who Hawkeye was, and then zap, I go round like a zombie, I’m like Loki’s minion. And I’m still not even sure who Hawkeye was at that point. So I’m a little frustrated, because I was so excited to figure out who Hawkeye was. I just had a heart attack in every scene – I’d just be walking with… Scarlett Johansson, and just like be ugh [clutching my chest]. And they said, ‘What are you doing man?’ I’m giving you an option, if you just want to kick me out of this movie. Just you know, at any given moment, if you wanna kill me off, daddy’s gonna be having a heart attack.
I don’t really want him to die now. I really got to explore him a lot, and I can’t wait to explore him more, and there’s some really cool ideas coming up. Really cool ideas. Great deaths! Amazing ways to die."
If you recall, following the release of the first film, Renner gave an interview in 2013 to Total Film where he stated, "For 90 percent of the movie, I'm not the character I signed on to play. It's kind of a vacancy. [He's] not even a bad guy, because there's not really a consciousness to him. To take away who that character is and just have him be this robot, essentially, and have him be this minion for evil that Loki uses ... I was limited, you know what I mean? I was a terminator in a way. Fun stunts. But is there any sort of emotional content or thought process? No." Those remarks led to crazy rumors, everything from Hawkeye actually being killed off for real to Marvel looking to recast the role.
Of course, Joss Whedon went on to flesh out Clint Barton's backstory in
Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the character revealed to have a secret family and the archer now serving as a guardian of sorts to Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) as seen in
Captain America: Civil War. As for
Avengers: Infinity War, I'll leave it up to you to decide whether he's joking about the "great deaths" and "amazing ways to die."
Infinity War is scheduled to arrives in North American theaters on May 4, 2018.