Haley Joel Osment Biography
Summary
"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.
Biography
Personal life
Osment was born in Los Angeles, California, where his family still resides, the son of Theresa (née Seifert), a teacher, and Michael Eugene Osment, a theater actor. His younger sister is actress Emily Osment of "Hannah Montana" and "Spy Kids" fame. He was a student at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada, California, and currently 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 in a shopping mall. 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 (alongside whom he would later star 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. He also made three minor 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 "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. 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.
2006 Alcohol- and drug-related car accident
On July 20, 2006, Osment was injured in a one-car accident. His blood-alcohol content was measured at 0.16 percent, twice the legal limit in California. On August 18, he was charged with four misdemeanors including driving under the influence of alcohol and possession of marijuana while driving. He pleaded no contest on October 19 and 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.
External links
(Haley Joel Osment official website)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Haley Joel Osment.
