Jeremy Renner never saw himself ‘as a victim’ says Anthony Mackie

Anthony Mackie, an American actor, sat down for an interview with People where he opened up about his friend Jeremy Renner’s major snowplow accident.

Having first worked together in 2008 on The Hurt Locker, he said the latter “never looked at himself as a victim.”

Renner ended up in the hospital after he got crushed under a seven-ton snow plow while trying to protect his nephew. The result was potentially fatal chest injuries, a collapsed lung, around 30 broken bones and a lacerated liver.

“When I got the news, I was really surprised and just hurt that my friend was going through this. So the first thing I thought was, ‘I need to be by his side,’” Mackie explained.

He added, “Once he started getting back up and around, I would get progress reports from either him or his family once a week. And Renner's funny. He's here all broken up and all disheveled, and he is like, ‘Oh, I hate this s---.’ And I'm like, ‘Dude.’”

The actor gushed, “It was great to see him keep his spirits and the way he worked through it. He's the pure definition of a strong human being. He never let himself get down. He never looked at himself as a victim."

“It was really beautiful to see him work through that and become whole again. Now he's a cyborg. He's Cyborg Renner!,” he concluded.