Ever since Jeremy Renner’s involvement in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery was announced, we’ve been scratching our heads wondering how the Marvel star can be playing… a regular guy after his name-drop in Glass Onion. Turns out, the actor is just as confused as we are – but he’s not losing any sleep trying to figure it out.
“He has no idea who he is,” he told Entertainment Weekly in a new interview, casually referring to himself in the third person. “He’s a sad doctor. He isn’t watching movies, man. He’s a sad man. That’s the archetype I play: dad in crisis.” Renner went on to say that while he “wasn’t part” of figuring out why Dr. Nat Sharp looks exactly like the dude who plays Hawkeye, he knows “it was talked about”.
For now, it seems safe to assume that it’s purely going to be a celebrity lookalike situation, which Wake Up Dead Man may not even end up referencing on screen. Josh Brolin’s priest Jud Duplenticy or Mila Kunis’s police chief Geraldine Scott might not be big MCU heads, granted, but Cailee Spaeny’s Simone Vivane could be more familiar with the bow-wielding Avenger… We’ll have to hold tight and see.
If you cast your mind back to 2019’s Glass Onion, you’ll remember there’s an early scene where Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) starts spluttering after eating a fiery canapé served at the weekend getaway of Edward Norton’s Miles Bron. “Oh, that’s Jeremy Renner’s small-batch hot sauce,” Miles explains. “I let him invest. He sends me, like, a pallet every year. Take a few bottles.” Bottles with Renner’s face on no less…
“Jeremy’s a great actor who I’ve wanted to work with for a long time,” writer-director Rian Johnson told Tudum earlier this month. “I was very relieved he thought the hot sauce thing was funny! He’s playing a proper part in this one; we’ll keep the sauce offscreen. Maybe we’ll sneak a few bottles onto the catering table.”
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery premieres in select theaters on November 26, before landing on Netflix on December 12. For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.
