Hawkeye‘s Jeremy Renner has been speaking to Dax Shepherd on his podcast Armchair Expert about the MCU‘s Avengers sizing one another up on set when they first started working together. While the American actors mostly knew each other, at least vaguely, one person stood out.
“On the first day, we’re all kind of parading around in our costumes,” the actor recalled. “So it looks like it’s Halloween. We’re excited and equally feeling ridiculous. I feel like we all kind of knew each other, somehow, some way. Except we didn’t know this Hemsworth guy, because he comes from Australia.”
Renner continued; “He’s the tallest, he’s the most good-looking. Downey was like: ‘We’ve got to break his knee. We’ve got to take him out. This guy’s too good-looking. He’s too tall. He’s too charming. F-k this guy.'”
We’ve all been there, RDJ. Over the next decade, the actors would of course form a close bond, and like the members of the fellowship in the Lord of the Rings, they even got matching tattoos. Except the giant green ball of rage himself, Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), who chickened out.
Renner said their tattoos were a symbol of “our bond and love.”
“The greatest thing that ever came from the last 11 years of the Marvel world, for me or even all of us, is the original ‘A’ six have been along the whole journey,” he said. “There have been marriages and divorces and kids born and a lot of shifts and changes in our personal lives as well as our acting lives that we all share together in a very specific way.”
Renner also described his costars as “family,” adding, “You can’t replace that or quantify it.”
“Everyone’s a celebrity in their own right,” he said. “But a Marvel celebrity, especially as the original six, has just been a different kind of journey.”
If you’ve been missing the OG Avengers since Endgame came out and, well, ended their journey together, check out our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order.