Oscar-, Golden Globe, and BAFTA-nominated Hollywood star Jeremy Renner was the surprise guest at the project market during the ongoing International Film Festival & Awards Macao.

Some 14 projects were pitched to international industry practitioners. The eclectic pitches were from Macau, Portugal, South Korea, Australia, U.S., Japan, Malaysia, France, Indonesia, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada, U.K., China, Spain, Belgium and Brazil.

Renner dropped in towards the end of the pitches and after joking about how difficult it is to get films made and then finding an audience for them, he encouraged the filmmakers to surround themselves with talent better than them. He used the example of his recent critically acclaimed film “Wind River,” written and directed by Taylor Sheridan.

“Taylor is definitely a leader, as the director,” Renner said. “And why he is a great leader, he encourages others to lead. One of the first things he said to me was ‘I’ll never tell you no’. As writers they can be very precious with their words and not changing things, but he just allowed freedom. And when you have freedom and trust with your director, your actors, the DP, the boom guy, anybody – everybody does their job, you allow them to be the best at they are, everybody has stock in the game. It becomes, a union, a team, one unit to tell one story. Everyone is really invested and that to me makes a wonderful set experience, it turns into a wonderful production and we’re happy that the film did well.”

Renner also stressed the importance of not having an ego. “Get out of your own damn way. If you think you know the answer, you’re already wrong. I tell myself that every day,” Renner said.

Renner is a talent ambassador at IFFAM. “It’s been an amazing opportunity to be an ambassador of the festival,” Renner said. “Art, across the globe, is something that we all share outside human emotion and something that we are all connected by. And it doesn’t have anything to do with race, color, creed or where you’re from to express art, it’s a human thing. I want to promote more of that.”

Renner also revealed that he has been spending a lot of time in China, trying to set up co-productions.