Nicky Katt, who stole scenes in Dazed and Confused, The Limey and many more has passed away at only 54.
If you’re like me, and you grew up on a steady diet of nineties indie films, Nicky Katt was a familiar face. While rarely the lead, Katt could always be relied on to contribute memorable character roles to some of the coolest movies of the era, and now Deadline is reporting that the actor has died at only 54 years old. No news on the cause of death has been released, but it’s a sad loss for the industry – as far as I’m concerned, he never really got his due.
Most of you reading this will probably remember him best for his role in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, where he played a “greaser” wannabe fifties throwback who beat up Adam Goldberg’s character after getting a beer poured on his head. For my money, one of Katt’s best roles was in The Limey, where he played a memorably glib hitman named Stacy, who made the mistake of underestimating Terence Stamp’s titular character. He was a favorite of that movie’s director, Steven Soderbergh (as well as Linklater – who used him many times), with him memorably playing a coked-up drug dealer in the Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra. Other roles include him playing one of the racists killed by Samuel L. Jackson in A Time to Kill, a memorable part in Christopher Nolan’s remake of Insomnia, and the main antagonist in the indie Wall Street riff, Boiler Room. He also played one of the bad guys in Christopher McQuarrie’s directorial debut, Way of the Gun.
Katt had seemingly not been active on film and TV for some time, with his last credited role on the short-lived Hulu series Casual in 2018. Whatever the case, fifty-four is a terribly young age to pass away at, and he deserves to be remembered, as he knocked it out of the park no matter how big or small the role was. May he rest in peace.
