Marvel fans know actor Jeremy Renner as the bow and arrow wielding Hawkeye. Now it may come as a surprise we almost got to see him as a different hero, namely, Hellboy.

It’s hard to imagine right? Apparently, the Marvel actor thought so too. When he was approached to play the lead in Hellboy (2004), the actor didn’t have second thoughts to turn it down. He revealed this on fellow actor Justin Long’s podcast, Life is Short.

According to Renner the film helmed by Guillermo del Toro offered him “a lot of money” on the table. The actor said:

“I was just reading the script and [thinking] like, ‘I don’t get this…’ I just couldn’t connect to it. I said, ‘I can’t find a way in [to this character], I don’t know what I’d be doing,’ so I had to say no.”

The role ultimately fell into Ron Perlman’s lap. Now it’s hard to see anyone else play the character even with David Harbour taking a shot at it in the 2019 reboot. Perlman’s casting was a success and it lead to a sequel for the original Hellboy film.

Renner revealed that he had absolutely no regrets after taking a hard pass on the part.

“There’s zero regrets, zero. Most of the time it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m glad I didn’t do it,’ and it made sense to me. Not just Hellboy or whatever it was, and I’m not saying that it’s a good or bad movie, it’s not about that… I just wouldn’t have fit there,” he said.

Of course, Hawkeye is a completely different story. With regard to the character the actor said:

“When they showed me my character… it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s great, it’s just a guy with no superpower — he’s just got a high skill set.’ I can actually attach to that,” he said, adding, “I’d have passed on [the role of] Thor all day long — not that I’d ever be cast in that — but like, that kind of thing I’d be like, ‘I don’t know how to do that, I’m sorry.’”