Buddy Duress, who earned raves for his portrayal of a rattled ex-con in the Safdie brothers’ Good Time, has died, reports People. He was 38 years old. His death — which, according to his brother, stemmed from a “cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail” — occurred back in November 2023 but it’s only being made public now.
Duress had never acted on film before he met the Safdies — a fairly common occurrence in their movies. When they met, Duress had recently been released from Rikers Island for drug charges. He was also on the run after skipping out on a drug in-patient program. They cast him in their 2014 addict saga Heaven Knows What, in which he played a low-level drug dealer. After production wrapped, Duress was caught and sent back to Rikers.
“You know, I still look back at it. If I had went to that program, I wouldn’t have been in Heaven Knows What, and I probably wouldn’t be an actor right now,” Duress told SSense. “That’s the honest truth. I wouldn’t.”
Upon his release the Safdies cast him in Good Time as Ray, a just released ex-con who accidentally gets embroiled in the film’s shenanigans. He oozes authenticity, frequently stealing the movie from its dressed-down movie star. At one point he goes into his wild back story about how he got those nasty bruises on his face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBI0U_6HJus
Duress appeared in a number of other indies and short films, including Person to Person, with Michael Cera and Abby Jacobson; The Mountain, with Jeff Goldblum and Tye Sheridan; PVT Chat with fellow Safdies alum Julia Fox; and Owen Kline’s Funny Pages.
He also continued to be in and out of prison. In 2019 he was arrested for grand larceny and returned to Rikers. Later that same year he was arrested for threatening to burn his mother’s house to the ground. He was arrested again for menacing and criminal possession of brass knuckles and a controlled substance.
“What happened is a tragic and frustrating loss of visceral talent,” Jon Karales, who directed Duress him in the forthcoming feature Mass State Lottery. “He lived like a cowboy and carrying the weight of that kind of life informed his skills and performances in a way that made him irreplaceable as an actor. He has unfortunately become the John Cazale of our generation.”
So pour one out for a complicated figure who burned but briefly.
Good Time now streams on Netflix and Tubi.
(Via People)
