Haley Joel Osment

Haley Osment
Osment, pictured in 2001
Birth name	Haley Joel Osment
Born	April 10 1988 (age 21) Los Angeles, California
Official site	http://www.haleyjoelosment.net
Awards Academy Awards Nominated for: Best Supporting Actor for his role of Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense (1999)

Haley Joel Osment (born April 10 1988) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor.

After a series of roles in television and film during the early 1990s, Osment came to fame with his starring role in the 1999 thriller, The Sixth Sense. He subsequently had leading roles in several high-profile Hollywood films, including Pay It Forward and A.I., with his most recent being 2003's Secondhand Lions. He is also notable for providing the voice of Sora, the protagonist in the Kingdom Hearts series, one of the most high-profile video game series to make heavy use of voice acting.

Osment is the brother of child actress Emily Osment.

Biography

Personal life

Osment was born in Los Angeles, California, to Michael Eugene Osment and Theresa Seifert. Osment's family resides in Los Angeles. He was a student at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada, California, and now attends New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Career

Osment began acting at the age of four, when he tried out for a Pizza Hut commercial. The commercial launched his career, and he landed his first television role later that year. As a young child his first film role was as Forrest Gump's son, also named Forrest Gump, in the 1994 film of the same name as well as making a small appearance in Mixed Nuts. He had roles in numerous TV series, including Thunder Alley, The Jeff Foxworthy Show and most notably the final season of Murphy Brown, in which he replaced Dylan Christopher as Murphy's son Avery. He also made numerous guest appearances in various TV series including The Larry Sanders Show, Walker, Texas Ranger (as a child dying from AIDS), Touched by an Angel, Chicago Hope, The Pretender, and as a child dying from leukemia in the emotional episode "Angels and Blimps" of the late-1990s show Ally McBeal.

Osment starred in 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 with future The Sixth Sense co-star Trevor Morgan. He first achieved stardom in 1999 when he appeared in the blockbuster The Sixth Sense, co-starring Bruce Willis. For this role, he won the Saturn Award for best young actor. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Michael Caine (whom he would later star alongside in Secondhand Lions). One of Osment's lines in The Sixth Sense, "I see dead people" is often repeated or parodied on television programs and in other media. For example, one creature in the Blizzard game Warcraft 3 says, "I eat dead people". In The Simpsons the phrase "I see dumb people" can be found. He also had several guest appearances on 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. The following year, he appeared in Steven Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence, 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 a Polish film, Edges of the Lord, as Romek. The movie was never released theatrically in the United States. He has since provided voices for The Country Bears and The Jungle Book 2, and returned to live action with the 2003 film Secondhand Lions.

More recently, Osment was the voice of Sora, the main protagonist of The Walt Disney Company and Square-Enix's Kingdom Hearts video game series, which has been extremely financially successful as well as generally well-received critically. He was also the voice of Takeshi Jinno, the main character of the Immortal Grand Prix anime TV series.

Osment's next film will be Home of the Giants, playing a high school journalist opposite Ryan Merriman and Danielle Panabaker.

Osment has confirmed in an interview that he will star in two new films in 2007.

2006 Alcohol and drug related car accident

Osment's mugshot, taken the morning of Thursday, August 17, 2006^[1]

At approximately 2:10 a.m. on July 20, 2006,^[2] Osment was driving alone after attending a Muse concert in his 1995 Saturn station wagon and allegedly lost control of the vehicle.^[3] As a result, the car crashed into a mailbox on a brick base and flipped over. Osment was conscious and communicating immediately after the crash. He fractured a rib, as well as his right shoulder blade, and suffered cuts and abrasions.^[2] His doctor noted that Osment was "in good condition" and would be released from hospital the next day after the accident.^[4] A blood sample was taken and his blood-alcohol content was measured to be 0.16 percent, twice the legal limit in California.^[5]

On August 18, 2006, Osment was charged with four misdemeanor counts: Driving under the influence of alcohol, driving with a .08 blood alcohol level or higher, enhancement of driving with a .15 or higher, and possession of marijuana while driving.

On October 19, 2006, Osment's lawyer, on behalf of Osment, pleaded no contest to one count each of misdemeanor driving under the influence and misdemeanor marijuana possession. The two other charges, another misdemeanor DUI and a vehicle code infraction, were dropped by prosecutors. Osment was sentenced to three years probation, 60 hours in an alcohol rehabilitation and education program, a fine of $1,500 and a minimum requirement of 26 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings over a six-month period.^[6]

Selected filmography

Footnotes

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