Haley Joel Osment is an American actor, born in Los Angeles, California, to Theresa Seifert, a teacher, and actor Eugene Osment. His ancestry includes Irish, German, and English/Scottish. He began acting at the age of four, when he tried out for a Pizza Hut commercial in a shopping mall. This 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 in the 1994 film "Forrest Gump." He also made a small appearance in "Mixed Nuts" (1994). He had roles in numerous TV series, including "Thunder Alley" (1994),"The Jeff Foxworthy Show" (1995),and the final season of "Murphy Brown" (1988).
Osment also made numerous guest appearances in various TV series, including "The Larry Sanders Show" (1992),"Walker, Texas Ranger" (1993),"Touched by an Angel" (1994),"Chicago Hope" (1994),"The Pretender" (1996),and "Ally McBeal" (1997). He starred in "Bogus" (1996) with Whoopi Goldberg and Gérard Depardieu, and appeared in the 1998 made-for-TV movie "The Lake" (1998) with Yasmine Bleeth.
He first achieved stardom in 1999 when he appeared in the blockbuster "The Sixth Sense" (1999),co-starring Bruce Willis. For this role, Osment 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.
Osment also made three minor guest appearances on "Family Guy" (1999) in 2000. One of Osment's lines in "The Sixth Sense" (1999),"I see dead people," is often repeated or parodied on television programs and in other media. The 2000 Academy Awards ceremony honored another of Osment's future co-stars, Best Actor Kevin Spacey, who, along with Helen Hunt, appeared in Osment's next film, "Pay It Forward" (2000).
The following year, Osment appeared in Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001),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" (2001),as Romek. The movie was never released theatrically in the United States.
Osment has since provided voices for "The Country Bears" (2002) and "The Jungle Book 2" (2003). More recently, Osment was the voice of Sora, the main protagonist of the Walt Disney Company and Square-Enix's Kingdom Hearts (2002) video-game series, which was extremely financially successful as well and generally well-received critically. He was also the voice of Takeshi Jinno in the "Time to Shine" episode of the IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix (2005) anime TV series.
Osment also worked in "Home of the Giants" (2007),playing a high school journalist opposite Ryan Merriman and Danielle Panabaker. On July 20, 2006, Osment was injured in a one-car accident. His blood-alcohol content was measured at 0.16%, 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.
In 2006, Osment took a hiatus from Hollywood and studied acting at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with Honors and a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts in 2011. He also appeared on Broadway in a 2008 production of David Mamet's "American Buffalo," and in John Logan's "Red" at the Philadelphia Theater Company in 2011.
Osment returned to the screen in 2012 with "I'll Follow You Down" (2013),co-starring with Gillian Anderson, Rufus Sewell, and Victor Garber, "Sassy Pants" (2012) with Anna Gunn and Diedrich Bader, then appeared in two seasons of Amazon Studios' comedy series "Alpha House" (2013),written by Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Trudeau and starring John Goodman. His many additional credits include "Comedy Bang! Bang!," Kevin Smith's horror comedies "Tusk" (2014) and "Yoga Hos
