Jeremy Renner says his mom Valerie issued a stark warning to Mayor of Kingstown co-creator and executive producer Hugh Dillon after he returned to shoot the series in the wake of his harrowing 2023 snowplow accident.
The actor, who plays town mediator Mike McLusky on the Paramount+ crime thriller, told PEOPLE that his mom made it very clear to Dillon that her son’s safety was of the utmost importance moving forward.
“My mom would kill Hugh if he did anything wrong,” Renner said.
Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
Hamish Allan-Headley, Hugh Dillon, and Jeremy Renner on ‘Mayor of Kingstown’
Renner was run over by an over 14,000-pound snowplow at his Reno vacation home while attempting to rescue his nephew on New Year’s Day 2023. He was airlifted to the hospital, where it was revealed that he’d suffered “30-plus broken bones,” a lacerated liver, and a collapsed lung, among other injuries.
After an intense healing process, Renner officially returned to work on Mayor of Kingstown season 3 the following year. It was then that Dillon, who stars alongside Renner as Detective Ian Ferguson on the series, made a personal promise to the actor’s mom to look out for him on set.
“When he came back [on set], I remember I had to promise his mom that we’d take care of him,” Dillon told the outlet. “I mean, he was in such a vulnerable place and [series co-creator] Taylor Sheridan always said, ‘Whatever it takes.’”
He continued, “We just have a really kind of intimate connection from working so much, and he was in such a vulnerable place, and, for me to go up and see him and talk to his family, to get where we’re going, was super personal.”
That promise extends much farther than just making sure Renner didn’t get banged up on set.
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“It’s not just, you know, get to the end of the season or get to the end of the scene,” Dillon said. “It’s like, with the titanium in his body, I want him to be happy. I want him to be… This is his life. It’s not just work.”
Now, the costars are teaming up again for Mayor of Kingstown’s fourth season, which will drop weekly episodes starting Oct. 26. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dillon teased that Renner’s character will face some real “consequences” this time around.
Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
Derek Webster, Hugh Dillon, and Jeremy Renner on ‘Mayor of Kingstown’
“It’s a detonation, not an escalation,” he said at the time. “The blade’s sharper. The cuts go deeper. It’s about the intricacies of human emotion under pressure, and the choices we make when we have no good choices left. It’s an incendiary season 4.”
Dillon continued, “The past doesn’t catch up with you. It reloads. So it’s coming and, in Mike’s case, it is right there. And Mike isn’t somebody who runs, and that’s what’s interesting. He stands and fights and he’s not ruled by fear or greed. So we just follow the truth of this character.”
Mayor of Kingstown season 4 begins streaming on Paramount+ on Oct. 26.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly