Jeremy Renner’s Strange Summer

Two years ago, the actor Jeremy Renner launched a mobile app called Jeremy Renner Official. A press release described it as “groundbreaking” and promised users the “ultimate bird’s eye view into Jeremy’s world.” There would be contests, exclusive photos, breaking news, and the chance to purchase “stars,” a mysterious currency that allows fans to propel themselves to the top of a scroll of Renner’s most devoted acolytes. “Users swap uplifting memes, selfies, and diet tips, and wish each other ‘Happy Rennsday’ en masse on Wednesdays,” Kate Knibbs wrote, at the time, for The Ringer. A modest, cheerful digital community dedicated to celebrating Jeremy Renner and lovers of Jeremy Renner. “My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?” Dostoyevsky once wrote.

Earlier this week, the app was abruptly shut down. Renner had grown deeply disgusted by the tenor of his community. “What was supposed to be a place for fans to connect with each other has turned into a place that is everything I detest and can’t or won’t condone,” he wrote. You really hate to see it. The app had been flooded with trolls, who were now mercilessly dunking on the dude (most were inspired by Stefan Heck, who explained, in a post for Deadspin, that a person could fairly easily impersonate Renner from within the app). Yet there had long been rancor within Jeremy Renner Official. Back in 2017, Knibbs recounted accusations of monkeying with the star system, of rigged contests (and changed prizes), and of moderators scrubbing any unflattering comments about Renner.

I do not wish to be judgmental about how other people spend their time or money. These sorts of vaguely lucrative, celebrity-oriented apps are not particularly unusual. (Nicki Minaj has one; so does Ellen Degeneres. Tom Hanks has a branded app that approximates an old typewriter.) Yet I’ll admit that it did seem weird that Renner would be into this sort of thing. Historically, the fan-focussed app is the more instinctive terrain of boy bands and ingénues—stars with very young and excitable tech-savvy fan bases—than of a forty-eight-year-old man who has been nominated for two Academy Awards.

But this summer has revealed many new and surprising things about Renner, who first came to our collective attention in 2009, when he starred in “The Hurt Locker,” a troubling and suspenseful film about a team of American soldiers tasked with disarming explosives in Iraq. The film earned Renner his first Oscar nomination, for Best Actor. He was excellent in the movie. Renner has narrow blue-green eyes and a face that can crumple—from playful to weary, vengeful to calm—at will. (He also has a house-flipping business and a lucrative recurring role in the Avengers franchise.)

Lately, he has been starring in a series of commercials for Jeep that afford equal reverence to Jeeps and Renner’s budding musical career. At a press event at Renner’s Hollywood Hills home, announcing the collaboration, the chief marketing officer of Fiat-Chrysler said, “I’m not sure if I’m speaking about Jeremy or Jeep when I say things like cool, rugged, immensely capable, iconic, famous, doesn’t need any introduction.” I cannot tell you with any accuracy how many of these commercials exist. There might be two; there might several dozen. My favorite is a spot called “Ride Swap.” It opens with a brief shot of Renner, in a long, black Johnny Cash-style coat, kicking sand. Then he is striding confidently out of a large green diner in the middle of a desert. His tour bus, which has the words “JEREMY RENNER ROADHOUSE TOUR” painted in enormous letters on the side, is parked right out front. A Jeep pulls up, and Renner is instantly captivated by its majesty. He jogs over to it, but his bandmates are ready to go. “Yo, Jer!” one of them yells. But no! He’s chatting up a lass. Her man is there, too. It’s hard to say precisely what happens next. I think he steals their Jeep. He does some light off-roading and more kicking of sand. In the next scene, he arrives at his concert, tosses the keys in the air, and grins sheepishly, as if to say, “What can you do?” Then he leaps onstage and begins performing a new song—a sort of rubbery, neo-soul thing about trying to conquer the world.

The tagline for the spot is “Jeep: The Freedom to Do It All,” which feels germane, I suppose, to Renner’s many creative interests, and also to something odious about the late capitalist work machine. Just as it is not terribly strange for a celebrity to have a promotional app, it is also not terribly strange for an actor to begin a musical career, or vice versa. Perhaps when a celebrity achieves one kind of fame and finds it lacking, it’s only normal to think “Maybe this is the wrong kind?” and then attempt to achieve adulation through some other medium. Renner reminds us that our quest for satisfaction is truly endless. Although the Internet has delighted in his travails—Renner exists in the same unsympathetic demographic as Sad Ben Affleck—I wish him nothing but peace on his journey. If the sand-kicking is any indication, he seems to be savoring it.