GONE TOO SOON

Buddy Duress, Troubled Star of ‘Good Time,’ Dies at 38

The Safdie brothers turned his prison journals into the 2017 hit “Good Time,” which saw Duress star alongside A-lister Robert Pattinson.

Buddy Duress, an actor known for his breakout roles in a pair of films directed by the Safdie brothers—as well as his repeated run-ins with the law—died last November due to a cardiac arrest caused by a “drug cocktail,” his brother told People Tuesday. He was 38. Duress reportedly first met Josh Safdie after escaping from an in-patient addiction program, and was cast in he and his brother Benny’s 2014 film, Heaven Knows What. But Duress was eventually arrested before the movie came out and taken to Rikers Island. The Safdie brothers eventually turned his prison journals into the 2017 hit Good Time, which saw Duress star alongside A-lister Robert Pattinson. Despite the success, he was arrested once more in 2019 on grand larceny charges—and again later that year after threatening to burn his own mother’s house down. In between his stints in jail Duress starred in a number of other projects, including several short films.