Jeremy Renner Opens Up About His Refusal To Return To ‘Mission: Impossible III’

After starring in two Mission: Impossible films — 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and 2015’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Jeremy Renner is speaking out about his refusal to return for the third installment.

In an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Renner told host Josh Horowitz it was a too big of a time commitment because his daughter was so young then, he couldn’t be away filming that long. But he noted his interest dimmed after he learned he was slated to film one week so that his character IMF agent William Brandt could be killed off.

“I remember they tried to bring me over[seas] for a week so they could kill my character, and I was like, ‘No, you don’t get to do that. You’re not going to drag me over there and just kill my character,’ like get out of here!” Renner said. “If you’re going to do this and you’re going to use my character, you’re going to do it right.”

“I yelled at [director Christopher McQuarrie],” Renner added with a laugh. “Dude, you’re not going to do this to me like that; you’re not going to do me wrong.”

Renner recently told Collider in an interview, now that his daughter Ava is older, he would be open to coming back.

“I was supposed to do more with them,” Renner said of the Mission: Impossible cast. “I love those guys. I love Tom so much. We had so much fun, and I love that character a lot. It requires a lot of time away. It’s all in London. I had to go be a dad. It just wasn’t gonna work out then. Maybe now that my daughter is older that could happen. I’d always jump into a Mission: Impossible anytime and back into Brandt. It’s great.”

You can watch the entire podcast below.