Haley Joel Osment

Haley Joel Osment (born April 10, 1988) is an American actor. After a series of roles in television and film during the 1990s, including a small part in Forrest Gump playing the title character’s son, Osment rose to fame with his performance as Cole Sear in M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 thriller, The Sixth Sense. Among other honors, he received an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor for his role in the film. Osment subsequently appeared in leading roles in several high-profile Hollywood movies; including Pay It Forward and A.I. Recently, he made his Broadway debut in a revival of American Buffalo, co-starring with John Leguizamo, and Cedric the Entertainer.

Early life
Haley Joel Osment was born in Los Angeles, California; the son of Theresa Osment (née Seifert), a teacher, and Michael Eugene Osment, a theater and film actor, both natives of Alabama. He has one sister, four years his junior, actress and singer-songwriter Emily Osment. Osment’s parents described his childhood as a “good old-fashioned Southern upbringing,” and his father said that when Osment was learning to speak, he deliberately avoided using baby talk when communicating with his son.

Raised as a Catholic, Osment was a straight-A student at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada, California. As a child, he was talented in many sports, including basketball, football, wrestling, and golf.

Career
Osment's acting career began at the age of four, when his mother took him to a new Ikea store; a talent scout was there looking for new actors, and Osment put his name down. He got called back for an audition, and was asked to describe the biggest thing he had ever seen; Osment described an IMAX theater screen, and won the part in a Pizza Hut TV commercial, advertising their "Big Foot" pizza. The commercial launched his career; later that year he starred in the ABC TV sitcom Thunder Alley, his first role in series television. His first feature film role was as Forrest Gump's son, also named Forrest Gump, in the 1994 movie of the same name. He also had a small part in another 1994 film, Mixed Nuts. Throughout the rest of the 1990's, Osment played regular and/or recurring roles in various TV series; including The Jeff Foxworthy Show and the final season of Murphy Brown, where he replaced Dylan Christopher as Murphy's son, Avery. In addition, he made numerous guest appearances on shows including The Larry Sanders Show, Walker, Texas Ranger (as a child dying from AIDS), Touched by an Angel, Chicago Hope, The Pretender, and an emotional episode of Ally Mcbeal; "Angels and Blimps", in which he played a child dying from leukemia. He starred in the 1996 film Bogus, alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Gérard Depardieu, and appeared in the 1998 made-for-TV movie The Lake, with Yasmine Bleeth, as well as I'll Remember April (1999), with future The Sixth Sense co-star Trevor Morgan.

Osment first achieved major stardom in 1999, when he appeared in the blockbuster film The Sixth Sense, co-starring Bruce Willis. For his deeply effective portrayal of Cole Sear, an anguished, frightened, and unwilling psychic child, Osment won the Saturn Award for best young actor. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the second-youngest performer ever to receive an Academy nomination for a supporting role, but lost the final Oscar vote to Michael Caine (with whom he would later work, appearing together in Secondhand Lions). One of Osment's lines in The Sixth Sense, "I see dead people", became a popular catchphrase and is often repeated or parodied on television programs and in other media. He made three minor (voice-only) guest appearances on the animated TV series, Family Guy in 2000.

The 2000 Academy Awards ceremony honored another future co-star, Best Actor Kevin Spacey, who, along with Helen Hunt, appeared in Osment's next film, Pay It Forward (2000). The following year, he appeared in Steven Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence: A.I., cementing his stature as one of the leading young actors in Hollywood. This role earned him his second Saturn Award. Also in 2001, Osment starred in the Polish film, Edges of the Lord, as Romek. The movie was never released theatrically in the United States. Osment's talents include voice-acting, and he has given skillful performances in many roles, working in animated films such as The Country Bears, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II and The Jungle Book 2. He returned to live action with the 2003 film, Secondhand Lions.

More recently, Osment was the voice of Sora, the main protagonist of the Kingdom Hearts video game series (English-language edition). Produced by The Walt Disney Company and Square-Enix, the series has been extremely successful financially, as well as being generally well-received critically. Osment also voiced the character of Takeshi Jinno, in the English version of the Immortal Grand Prix anime TV series.

He next appeared in Home of the Giants, playing a high school journalist opposite Ryan Merriman and Danielle Panabaker. He is currently working on Montana Amazon as both an actor and executive producer. The film co-stars Olympia Dukakis and is expected to be released in 2009.

Osment made his Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre in November 2008, playing the role of "Bobby", a young heroin addict, in a revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo; co-starring with John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer. The show opened to mixed reviews, and a provisional statement was made on November 20, 2008, that it would close after the first week. Osment was given one sentence in the New York Times review of the production: "Mr. Osment’s facial stubble and slumping posture fail to override the impression that he’s giving a perfect School of Disney juvenile performance." Newsday, however, said "Haley Joel Osment... has a sweet, haunting neediness as a slacker who appears to recognize a kind of death in himself."

Personal life
According to Osment's official website, he follows a mostly vegetarian diet (though he does like chicken and fish), and in an interview with Daniel Robert Epstein, Osment mentioned that he plays the guitar and piano. He currently attends New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Osment is an avid golfer, who began playing at the age of 7. He played for the U.S. team in the All-Star Cup 2005, under team leader Mark O'Meara, and has participated in the Annual Michael Douglas & Friends Celebrity Golf Tournament.

Osment was involved in a single-driver automobile accident on July 20, 2006, in which he struck a brick mailbox and overturned his car while driving near his home. The accident resulted in injuries including a broken rib, fractured right shoulder blade, cuts and abrasions. In connection with this incident, Osment pleaded no contest to one count each of misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol and drug possession on October 19, 2006. He was sentenced to three years probation, 60 hours in an alcohol rehabilitation and education program, a fine of $1500, and a minimum requirement of 26 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings over a six-month period.