INTERVIEW: Jeremy Renner

'"He has an infectious hell-for-leather laugh that scrunches up his entire face. He is 39 but looks ten years young with round, boyish features and the kind of baby blues to melt even the most suspicious mother’s heart. He’s trouble, alright. Maybe not trouble of the magnitude of his movies — not disarm-an-OED-with- a-flashlight-between-his-teeth trouble or rob-a-bank-disguised-as-a-nun trouble — but trouble of the kind that keeps women on their toes, and awakens in men an urge to get sloppy drunk on Tequila, and declare their undying fealty in the nearest bar. If he were English, he’d be putting away cheeky little goals in the premiership, haring up the pitch with his tongue between his teeth. “He doesn’t hold himself like an actor,” says Sam Rockwell, who co-starred with Renner, along with Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. “His demeanour is more like a stunt guy, or a wrangler. He seems like the grip.” The first time he met him was in a bar in Calgary. “He had a whiskey in his hand and a glint in his eye, you know, he just had this aura about him — this kind of right-stuff test-pilot, cowboy aura. He’s just a fun guy to be around, you want to be around him, you want him at your party. And we had some crazy boys up there. A lot of time on our hands. But Renner was the guy on Jesse James. Everyone used to imitate him, even Brad. ‘Where’s Renner, somebody get Renner....’ Calgary were ready to give him the key to the city. The reason I think his performance in The Hurt Locker resonated so much, was because it was the first time that I’ve seen what I see when I go drinking with him, on film. It was the first time audiences got to see that swagger in full form. His rebel spirit really came across. That’s in him — he’s really got that.” ' — from my interview with Jeremy Renner in The Daily Telegraph