Nicky Katt, 'Dazed and Confused' and 'Boston Public' star, dead at 54
Nicky Katt, the character actor known for his roles in "Dazed and Confused," "Boston Public" and "Boiler Room," has died. He was 54.
Katt's attorney John Sloss, the founder and partner of Sloss Law, confirmed the actor's death to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.
Born on May 11, 1970 in South Dakota, Katt launched his career as a child, making his television debut in a 1980 episode of "Fantasy Island."
Throughout the 80s, Katt made appearances on numerous TV shows including "CHiPs", "Father Murphy," "Code Red," "Herbie, the Love Bug," "Voyagers!," "Quincy, M.E.," "V," "The Get Along Gang," "The Facts of Life," "Dear John" and "Uncle Buck."
After making his big-screen debut in 1981's "Underground Aces," Katt appeared in "Gremlins," "The 'Burbs," "Martians Go Home" and "Sister Act."
He landed one of his best-known film roles when director Richard Linklater cast him in the 1993 classic coming-of-age comedy "Dazed and Confused." He was a member of the movie's ensemble cast which included then-rising stars Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Renée Zellweger, Parker Posey and Joey Lauren Adams
In the film, Katt played high school bully Clint Bruno, who engages in a brawl with Adam Goldberg's character Mike Newhouse during a keg party.
Linklater and Katt worked together again in 1996's "subUrbia," 2001's "Waking Life" and 2003's "School of Rock."
Katt played a hitman in Steven Soderbergh's 1999 crime movie "The Limey." Katt worked with Soderbergh again when he portrayed an unnamed actor playing German dictator Adolf Hitler in the director's 2001 comedy-drama "Full Frontal." The movie's ensemble cast included Catherine Keener, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts.
Katt and Soderbergh reunited again in 2013 for the director's biographical TV movie "Behind the Candelabra."
In another of Katt's most notable roles, he starred as stockbroker Greg Weinstein alongside Affleck, Vin Diesel and Giovanni Ribisi in 2000's "Boiler Room."
In 2002, Katt appeared Christopher Nolan's 2002 psychological thriller "Insomnia" and he later played a S.W.A.T. team member in the director's 2008 superhero movie "The Dark Knight."
His other film credits include roles in "A Time to Kill," "Batman & Robin," "The Way of the Gun," "Sin City," "Death Proof," "Snow Angels" and "The Sitter."
The late actor also made his mark on the small screen. From 2000 to 2002, Katt played passionate geology teacher Harry Senate, who used unorthodox methods to instruct his troubled students in the first three seasons of the Fox drama TV series "Boston Public."
Katt's other television work included appearances on "Love & War," "Friends," "Monk," "The Guardian," "Law & Order," "King of the Hill" and "ER."
According to IMDB, Katt made his final on-screen appearance during an episode of the Hulu series "Casual."
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For poignant scrutiny of the digital revolution's repercussions for teens, Handy might have explored the sweetly rendered Eighth Grade (2018), which arms a fledgling adolescent with her own camera. Kayla (Elsie Fisher), a painfully shy and insecure 13-year-old, is glued to screens, a voyeur obsessively scrolling for glimpses of lives that seem intimidatingly alien and glamorous. At the same time, she's a vlogger, posting wishfully affirmative videos online. Set during the last week of the school year, the movie deftly captures a kid caught between the digital and real worlds, trapped in her own head and stranded on the margins of an inaccessible peer scene. Finally daring to show up at a pool party, she doesn't reach for beer or pot; she has a panic attack. I couldn't help comparing the scene of Kayla, in an all-wrong bright-green one-piece, anxiously descending into the pool, head down as if to make herself invisible, with a memorable moment in Fast Times: the sexually-savvy-beyond-her-years Linda (Phoebe Cates), clad in a fire-engine-red bikini, majestically emerging from the water, a symbol of an era freighted with such different fears. By now, in the TikTok-teen era (vlogging Kayla was a little ahead of her time), the feedback-loop premise of Handy's history shows signs of being under strain. Teens, once Hollywood's lucrative market, no longer flock to theaters. And the place where their adventures are playing out isn't as readily accessible as it once was, even to hyper-hovering adults. If teens are still showing up at parties, they're on their phones there; if they still venture out to whatever malls they can find, they're on their phones there. When they're at school, they're mostly on their phones there, too. And what they are consuming is content produced by other teens—stories and TikToks and straight-to-camera diatribes more real to them than any film written by adults and shot through their anxious, or nostalgic, lens. The cohort that took over mass culture more than half a century ago has now built a sprawling culture for itself, by itself. In 2025, the most potent media produced about teenagers will likely emerge on those pocket-size life changers, and most grown-ups will never get wind of what's on display. How's that for something to worry about?
