Jeremy Renner poses shirtless and shows scars from a snowplow accident

The Mayor of Kingstown Star posed shirtless on the cover of the July/August issue of Men’s Health Magazine, where he talked about how his life changed after he had a Snow plow accident This resulted in him being placed on life support.

The magazine’s cover shows the 53-year-old actor’s scars on his back, shoulders and stomach, while the inside cover shows a scar on his leg from wearing workout shorts.

“I never really had scars before, they were probably more emotional, mental scars, you know?” Renner said in a video accompanying the cover shoot. “And now there are some physical ones too. But the physical ones aren’t even from the accident, they’re just caused by the accident. All of these are just memories of the beautiful day that could have been a really bad day.”

On this “beautiful day,” as he calls it, Renner was seriously injured. The 53-year-old remembers the moment when he says he died in the accident.

“I’m glad I’m here, and I’m going to continue to nurture what you take with you: the shared experiences with your loved ones. It’s eternal and you take it with you,” Renner shared. “It’s connected. There’s no time, place, or space. It’s great. It’s the mind’s eye. Not your vision. You don’t need vision – you’re dead. The vision is part of this stupid body thing. But the mind’s eye is what you take with you. You see in your mind – that’s being dead. That’s what it’s like to be dead.”

He added: “What you can imagine with your eyes closed. It’s amazing. It’s amazing! And by the way, everyone is there! It’s what you imagine. It was joy. It was intoxicating peace. Intoxicating peace. You’re connected to everything at once. All the love from the third grade teacher you fell in love with to everything at once. All of that is there. Ongoing. Ongoing. Forever. It’s infinite. It’s great.”

Renner, the father of 11-year-old daughter Ava, said another lesson he learned after the accident was to embrace the love of his family and friends and to understand that the accident changed the way some people viewed him.

“I’m a tough guy to love, I think?” Hawkeye The actor admitted. “And I think my family and my people put all that aside. There are a lot of people who love me. And I had no idea. I had to learn to accept all that love, and that’s not easy. Even from people you don’t even know. Why is this accident a thing? But then I said to myself, damn it, stop asking why. Just accept it. I was famous for having a bow and arrow; now I’m famous for overcoming something as a man.”

When asked how he will continue and possibly get into his best shape in years, Renner said he just has to “put in the work.”

“Look, I’m 53. I’m trying to build muscle and I’m losing weight. You atrophy, my testosterone is 300, I have no growth hormone at all – everything is going downhill. Protein helps build muscle, so I eat a higher protein diet. The more strength I have, the more energy I have to keep going,” he explained. “People ask how. How do you do it? You just have to work hard, man. Love yourself, have confidence in yourself. How do you find confidence? You take one step, then you take another step, and then, guess what, hot sauce? You go! You know what I mean? You breathe out, then you breathe in, then you breathe out. Well, now you breathe!”

Renner’s mantra since the accident: “The only thing we can control in our lives is our perspective,” and that is exactly what he does when he appears in front of an audience again a year and a half after that fateful day.