Buddy Duress, 'Good Time' Actor, Dead at 38
US actor Buddy Duress attends on May 25, 2017 a press conference for the film 'Good Time' at the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. / AFP PHOTO / Laurent EMMANUEL (Photo credit should read LAURENT EMMANUEL/AFP via Getty Images)
Actor Buddy Duresshas died at just 38 years old, his brother, Christopher Stathis, confirmed to People on Feb. 27.
Christopher said he passed away in November of 2023, following a cardiac arrest reportedly caused by a "drug cocktail."
Duress, who was born Michael C. Stathis, was perhaps best known for his roles in the Robert Pattinson -led Good Time or Heaven Knows What , but he got somewhat of a late start in the industry when he met Josh Safdie in 2014. Josh, along with his brother Benny, is known for creating films like Uncut Gems and Good Time .
When Duress met the director and landed a role in the brothers' film Heaven Knows What , he'd recently been released from prison for drug charges. Unfortunately, he was wanted after he evaded an in-patient rehabilitation program and was taken back to prison sometime after filming concluded, where he remained in custody during the project's New York Film Festival premiere.
In an interview with SSense , Duress looked back on the time, noting that "if [he] had went to that program, [he] wouldn't have been in Heaven Knows What , and [he] probably wouldn't be an actor right now." Following his release, the Safdie brothers had the budding actor write a journal about his incarceration, which inspired the script for Good Time .
He went on to star in a variety of other films before he was arrested for grand larceny in 2019, and later for allegedly threatening to burn down his mother's house. The latter came while filming Flinch , and director Cameron Van Hoyand Duress' mother Jo-Annebailed him out before he was arrested again on charges related to menacing and criminal possession of brass knuckles and a controlled substance.
Despite the problems his arrests surely brought to their filming schedule, Van Hoy called working with Duress "one of the great adventures of my life" following news of his passing. "Despite any troubles he was going through in life he somehow managed to put them aside when it came time to work...I'm heartbroken that his life came to an end as it did."
Jay Karales, director of one of Duress' final, yet-to-be-released projects Mass State Lottery , called him a "once in a lifetime charismatic actor and a genuinely humble man that left an impression on everyone he met." He told the People , "What happened is a tragic and frustrating loss of visceral talent. 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."
Duress is survived by his mom and younger brother.
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