Haley Joel Osment has opened up about her long hiatus from acting and her return to Hollywood after 15 years.
The 36-year-old actor, who was a child star, opened up about why he decided to take a break in the first place and reflected on how he found fame at a young age.
She’s next set to star in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, Blink Twice, but before that, she found fame after starring in the 1999 psychological thriller The Sixth Sense alongside Bruce Willis, and even showed support for her former co-star when he decided to step away from acting.
After earning an Oscar nomination at age 11 and starring in several notable projects, she decided to take a break from acting and moved to New York City to attend college at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006.
Osment said E! News Sunday: ‘My parents used to tell me when I first started in this industry: “If it’s ever not fun, you can quit tomorrow.”
Haley Joel Osment opened up about her long hiatus from acting and her return to Hollywood after 15 years; seen on August 8
“And when I reached university age, I was able to go study theatre and think seriously about whether I wanted to make this my career in life,” he recalled.
“The answer has always been yes in all of these situations,” Osment continued, noting that he made the decisions despite having always had a passion for acting.
“It’s still a job I really enjoy, despite all the uncertainty and the difficulty of being able to plan your life three or six months in advance,” he explained.
Osment, who was five years old when she made her big-screen debut in 1994’s Forrest Gump, also recalled the Hollywood landscape when she made the decision to take a break and enroll in college.
“Those were pretty tense years in terms of what celebrity was like in Los Angeles,” he said.
She said she saw “this kind of very predatory and aggressive tabloid interaction with certain celebrities.”
“I remember feeling very happy that I didn’t have my home in Los Angeles at that time,” she added.
In 2006, he was also sentenced to probation after pleading not guilty to charges of drunk driving and marijuana possession.
Around the same time, his younger sister Emily Osment also landed her big role in Hannah Montana, and he left Hollywood to go to school in New York City.
The 36-year-old actor, who was a child star, opened up about why he decided to take a break in the first place and reflected on finding fame at a young age; seen in February 2023
She’s next set to star in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, Blink Twice, but before that, she found fame after starring in the 1999 psychological thriller The Sixth Sense alongside Bruce Willis, and even showed support for her former co-star when he decided to step away from acting.
Osment said he did, however, notice a change in Hollywood after his return.
She noted that her hometown of Los Angeles has “softened a little bit” when it comes to the paparazzi culture she witnessed as a teenager.
“We are in a different era than we were in,” he said.
“It’s an interesting change in dynamics,” she said of navigating social media as a public figure who also prioritized her privacy.
After eventually creating an Instagram account to counter fake accounts claiming to be him, he admitted that it took him “a long time to figure out how to navigate social media” and gave credence to content being “voluntarily posted online.”
“Right now, I’m comfortable with it,” Osment said. “In this big media environment, it’s the way to promote your projects and help people stay up to date on what you’re doing within a reasonable balance of privacy. I resisted it for so long and now it’s like, ‘Hey, it’s fun to do some posts.'”
She also praised how younger actors are navigating fame in an era where social media is pervasive and omnipresent.
“When I first started in this industry, the Internet was already around, but it wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today,” she said. “So I’m always really impressed that younger actors today can navigate the social media landscape, because that’s something I never had to deal with at that age.”
After earning an Oscar nomination at just 11 years old and starring in several notable projects, she decided to take a break from acting and moved to New York City to attend college at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006; seen in August 2003.
He noted that he saw there was “this kind of very predatory and aggressive tabloid interaction with certain celebrities”; seen in August 2011.
Osment said she noticed a change in Hollywood after her return. She noted that her hometown of Los Angeles has “softened a little bit” when it comes to the paparazzi culture she witnessed as a teenager; seen in May 2019
Osment will next appear in Blink Twice and star alongside lead stars Channing Tatum and Naomi Ackie in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut. Blink Twice opens in theaters Friday, August 23; streaming on February 20.
Osment will next appear in Blink Twice and star alongside lead stars Channing Tatum and Naomi Ackie in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut.
In the upcoming thriller, he plays Tom, a morally malleable actor who struggles with (characters he said he hasn’t had “too many interactions” with in real life), a guy who is “kind of pathetic” but trying to “be a better man and optimize his life.”
Blink Twice follows cocktail actress Frida (Ackie), who meets tech billionaire Slater King (Tatum) at his fundraising gala.
During their meeting, he invites her to join him and his friends for a hedonistic getaway on his private island.
According to the synopsis, wild nights soon turn into sunny days. However, when strange things begin to happen, Frida must uncover the truth if she wants to make it out alive.
The star-studded cast also includes Adria Arjona, Alia Shawkat, Levon Hawke, Simon Rex, Christian Slater, Liz Caribal, Geena Davis, Trew Mullen and many others.
Blink Twice hits theaters on Friday, August 23.