Oscar winner in 2010, Kathryn Bigelow’s Minesweeper is a landmark film as much for the public as for the director, as well as for its main interpreter Jeremy Renner who does not keep only good memories. The actor has indeed experienced a complicated shoot.
Kathryn Bigelow in the legend with Minesweepers
In 2010 Kathryn Bigelow made history by winning Oscar for Best Director with Minesweepers (2009). A first for a woman, and clearly not undeserved. With this film, the filmmaker presents the daily life of a demining team during the Iraq war. More precisely Sergeant William James, extremely cynical and who does not hesitate to take more than necessary risks.
The latter is firmly embodied by Jeremy Rennerlong before it became Hawkeye within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). At his side, we also found Anthony Mackie, future Sam Wilson, alias Faucon. On their side, Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes were probably the most famous faces of the film at the time. Reason why the director took a certain pleasure in quickly eliminating their characters in Minesweepers.
In addition to the Oscar awarded to Kathryn Bigelow, Minesweepers also went down in history but for a less glorious reason. In fact, the film was a huge box office failure. And with his 12 million dollars collected in the United States at the time, he became lowest-grossing Oscar-winning film. This did not prevent it from subsequently gaining popularity with the public (with DVD releases and television broadcasts).
Injury and poisoning for Jeremy Renner
Regarding Jeremy Renner, if he is impressive in Minesweepers, this experience was not the most pleasant for him. As he revealed in 2010 at Timesthen to Vanity Fair (video at the end of the article), the shooting conditions were particularly complicated. Wanting to be as realistic as possible, Kathryn Bigelow went to shoot in the Middle East (partly in Jordan). There, the temperatures were particularly high, sometimes reaching 49 degrees.
Add to that a demining outfit of about 45 kilos, and you can imagine the discomfort. Because yes, even if a double could have been present for certain sequences, Kathryn Bigelow wanted Jeremy Renner to be in this combination for as many scenes as possible, believing that his incarnation of the role also depended on his approach.
Equally, the actor injured his ankle during a scene. While carrying a child up a flight of stairs, he lost his balance causing an injury that lasted a few days. But the most memorable will remain for him food poisoning that he will probably never forget.
I survived everything until today… With some guys we went to Beirut to have fun. That’s when one of my friends, drunk, ordered a sandwich. Since he was already passed out, I ate the sandwich instead, except that there was salad in it. And it was over. I lost 13 kilos in four days.
A memory that Jeremy Renner enjoys today, who says “never to have been so sick in all his life” and who was even then repatriated to Jordan by helicopter.
