How Jeremy Renner got doused with flammable liquid and lit on fire in ‘The House’

Modesto native Jeremy Renner lights up the screen – literally – in the new comedy “The House,” released Friday in theaters.

Renner, considered an outlier among comedy greats in the new film from director Andrew Jay Cohen, eschewed the idea of a stunt double for a scene in which flammable liquid is poured on his character and set ablaze, film co-star Jason Mantzoukas told Seth Meyers Thursday on NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”

“We straight up lit that dude on fire,” Mantzoukas said on the show. “In my mind, it was like, well, yeah, and then a stunt man is going to come in, and (Renner) was like ... ‘yeah, no, let’s do it, let’s do it.’ And I was like ‘no, no, no no, no, this isn’t what we’re doing.’ ”

But they did. “Then we sat there and watched him take after take be straight-up lit on fire,” Mantzoukas told Meyers.

Renner, a Beyer High graduate, plays a villain in the film starring Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler as a suburban couple who drop the ball on their daughter’s college tuition fund and are forced to open an underground casino in their home to come up fast with the cash.

Cohen told The Hollywood Reporter that he wanted to put a a non-comedy actor into the uproarious, much-improvised film.

“I love throwing people like Renner into a comedy,” Cohen said in the Hollywood Reporter. “Having that dark, violent energy seemed to really work, and the comedians bounced off that intensity. Even Renner’s preparation on set is scary to a comedian: ‘Oh no! He’s a serious actor! That’s terrifying! He’s gonna beat us all at acting!’ He was really a great sport about getting lit on fire.”

“The House” is playing now at Modesto area theaters; the comedy is rated R.

This story was originally published June 30, 2017 at 1:55 PM with the headline "How Jeremy Renner got doused with flammable liquid and lit on fire in ‘The House’."