Jeremy Renner had a pretty good reason to exit the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.
“I had to leave that,” the actor told Collider in an interview published Monday. “I was supposed to do more with them. I love those guys. I love Tom [Cruise] so much. We had so much fun, and I love that character a lot. It requires a lot of time away. It’s all in London. I had to go be a dad.”
Renner had starred as William Brandt in 2011′s “Ghost Protocol” and 2015′s “Rogue Nation” amid reports that he might replace Cruise as the “Mission: Impossible” lead.
But Renner left the action film series before its highest-grossing entry, 2018′s “Fallout.” Director Christopher McQuarrie said at the time that a scheduling conflict had prevented Renner from appearing in the film.
But speaking to Collider, the actor emphasized that reprising his role “just wasn’t gonna work out then” since he was raising a young child, Ava Berlin Renner.
“Maybe now that my daughter is older that could happen,” Renner said. “I’d always jump into a Mission: Impossible anytime and back into Brandt. It’s great.”
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The first “Mission: Impossible” movie was released in 1996, and although it was a hit, later entries turned the franchise into a bona fide box-office behemoth.
The series has not only raked in billions of dollars worldwide, but helped make Cruise perhaps the most famous Hollywood star turned stuntman with his death-defying showstoppers.
Meanwhile, in the years following “Rogue Nation,” Renner would continue to appear as the superhero Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
He proved to be a real-life superhero at the start of 2023 when he reportedly prevented a snowplow from hitting his nephew.
Though the actor nearly died in the incident, he recently told late night host Jimmy Fallon that it taught him some valuable lessons.
“I won’t have a bad day for the rest of my life,” he said. “It’s impossible.”