Nearly three weeks after his harrowing snowplow accident, Jeremy Renner has been released from the hospital. In a Jan. 16 tweet, the actor stated that he was "very excited" to get home and watch the Season 2 premiere of Mayor of Kingstown, the gritty Taylor Sheridan prison drama in which Renner stars. And in even more encouraging news, Kingstown co-creator Hugh Dillon, who also stars in the show, says that Renner is a "fighter," and the future is bright for the beloved series.
"We're like a hockey team. [Renner's] our captain who's been injured, and that's really all of it," Dillon told The Hollywood Reporter. "He's a f****** fighter. Excuse my language, but that's the glory of that dude."
Renner suffered critical injuries Jan. 1 while attempting to remove a family member's car from a snowbank on his Nevada property. The actor was struck by his 14,000-pound snowplow and taken to the hospital, where he underwent at least two orthopedic surgeries. On Jan. 3, Renner provided a heartening update for fans on Instagram, writing, "Thank you all for your kind words. 🙏. Im too messed up now to type. But I send love to you all."
Dillon plays Kingstown Homicide Detective Ian Ferguson, the gum-chewing, foul-mouthed childhood friend of Renner's titular "Mayor" Mike McLusky. When news broke of Renner's accident just days before the series' Season 2 premiere, Dillon says the rest of the cast came together and did the press rounds on his behalf.
Dianne Wiest as Miriam McLusky and Hugh Dillon as Ian Ferguson in Mayor of Kingstown Season 2. (Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount +. © 2022 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
"I heard from one of the producers, and then I saw the news," Dillon says of how he learned about Renner's injuries. "It was New Year's Day, and then we just got all hands on deck. We all wanted to just support him and do press for him. He's family."
Dillon and Renner first worked together on Taylor Sheridan's 2017 feature film debut Wind River. It was on the set of that film that Sheridan and Dillon first pitched Renner on Mayor of Kingstown, a crime drama partly based on Dillon's own upbringing in the rough prison town of Kingston, Ontario.
"I grew up in a prison town that had nine penitentiaries. When I met Taylor [Sheridan], I had six months clean and sober from being a heroin addict. I'd lived all over the place. In the late '70s, early '80s, my hockey coaches had guns on the benches. They'd put them in the dressing room before we'd go on the ice. The Kingston Pen was a dumping ground for bad guards in the '70s."
Mayor of Kingstown was a long time in the making. The series was the first thing prolific screenwriter Sheridan had ever written, before Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Yellowstone. Kingstown's first season bowed in 2021 and ended with an explosive, large-scale prison riot. When asked whether Season 2, which premiered Jan. 15th on Paramount+, will be as ambitious, Dillon did not mince words:
"More so, really. Season 2 is uncompromising. It has a crazy velocity to it, and I think Taylor has opened up the world with an intimacy that explodes. It's still one large 10-episode movie, and I just find it hypnotic. So there is a deeper scale, if I can put it that way."
Renner's hospitalization has had fans worried for the future of the show, but his at-home recovery is an encouraging sign. Besides, Dillon says Mayor of Kingstown isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"Having discussed it for a decade, we've plotted it all out, so it could go anywhere and go for any length. The great thing about discussing it for so long is that we have limitless ideas."
New episodes of Mayor of Kingstown stream Sundays exclusively on Paramount+
