{"id":39630,"date":"2024-08-27T11:04:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T15:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=39630"},"modified":"2024-08-27T11:04:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T15:04:40","slug":"former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html","title":{"rendered":"Former Child Star Haley Joel Osment Talks Taking a 15-Year Break from LA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Tinseltown \/ Shutterstock.com | Inset: Featureflash Photo Agency \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twenty-five years ago, a little film by an unknown director by the name of M. Night Shyamalan rocked the summer blockbuster season. The film was \u201cThe Sixth Sense,\u201d starring Bruce Willis as child psychologist Malcolm Crewe, who begins treating a young boy named Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Crewe soon learns that Sear is going through something much more supernatural than he\u2019s prepared for and Sear\u2019s desperate confession, \u201cI see dead people\u201d has become a cultural tagline, along with the film\u2019s shocking twist. It was a breakout film for Osment, who had first gained fame at 5-years-old playing Forrest Gump\u2019s son, Forrest, Jr. in the Oscar-winning \u201cForrest Gump.\u201d But in 2006, he left Los Angeles for New York to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, taking a 15-year hiatus LA and the spotlight. Now, he\u2019s opening up about why he made the decision to walk away for a decade and a half.<\/p>\n

Now 36, Osment spoke to E! News<\/em><\/a>, telling the outlet that he began considering what he really wanted to do. \u201cMy parents used to say when I first started out in this industry, \u2018If it\u2019s ever not fun, you can quit tomorrow. And when I got to be college age, I got to go off and study theater and really think hard about whether I wanted to do this as my career in life,\u201d he said. Despite the break, his love for acting never truly diminished. \u201cIt\u2019s still a job that I really enjoy, despite all the uncertainty and the difficulty of being able to plan your life three to six months out.\u201d But the break from LA and fame was much needed, with Osment noting that while in LA, there was a \u201cvery predatory, aggressive kind of tabloid engagement with certain celebrities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s returned, he states the paparazzi culture has \u201cmellowed out a bit,\u201d crediting the rise of social media platforms like Instagram. \u201cIn this very large media environment, it’s the way to promote your projects and help people keep up to date on what you’re doing within the balance of reasonable privacy. I resisted it for so long, and now it’s like, ‘Hey, it’s fun to do some posts,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I came up in this industry, the Internet was around but it wasn’t so omnipresent as it is today. So, for younger actors today, I’m always really impressed with them being able to manage the social media landscape, because that’s not something I ever really had to deal with at that age,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The hiatus was not without its drama, with Osment being sentenced to probation in 2006 for drunk driving and possession of marijuana prior. At the time, it was portrayed as a major meltdown, typical of what many child actors experience in their time. But in a previous interview<\/a>, Osment said the incident \u201ccould not have had less to do with Hollywood.\u201d He stated that he believed child actors who enjoy the business and then may move on to have successful careers in other areas may be more the norm than the sensational stories of child actors gone wrong. Osment\u2019s is now appearing in the thriller \u201cBlink Twice,\u201d out now which will be Zo\u00eb Kravitz\u2019s directorial debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago, a little film by an unknown director by the name of M. Night Shyamalan rocked the summer blockbuster season. The film was \u201cThe Sixth Sense,\u201d starring Bruce Willis as child psychologist Malcolm Crewe, who begins treating a young boy named Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Crewe soon learns that Sear…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":39621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","category-entertainment","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nFormer Child Star Haley Joel Osment Talks Taking a 15-Year Break from LA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Child Star Haley Joel Osment Talks Taking a 15-Year Break from LA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Twenty-five years ago, a little film by an unknown director by the name of M. Night Shyamalan rocked the summer blockbuster season. The film was \u201cThe Sixth Sense,\u201d starring Bruce Willis as child psychologist Malcolm Crewe, who begins treating a young boy named Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Crewe soon learns that Sear…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-08-27T15:04:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/08\/haley-joel-osment_credit-Tinseltown-Shutterstock_Inset-Featureflash-Photo-Agency-Shutterstock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Former Child Star Haley Joel Osment Talks Taking a 15-Year Break from LA","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Former Child Star Haley Joel Osment Talks Taking a 15-Year Break from LA","og_description":"Twenty-five years ago, a little film by an unknown director by the name of M. Night Shyamalan rocked the summer blockbuster season. The film was \u201cThe Sixth Sense,\u201d starring Bruce Willis as child psychologist Malcolm Crewe, who begins treating a young boy named Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Crewe soon learns that Sear…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2024-08-27T15:04:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/08\/haley-joel-osment_credit-Tinseltown-Shutterstock_Inset-Featureflash-Photo-Agency-Shutterstock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html","name":"Former Child Star Haley Joel Osment Talks Taking a 15-Year Break from LA","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/08\/haley-joel-osment_credit-Tinseltown-Shutterstock_Inset-Featureflash-Photo-Agency-Shutterstock.jpg","datePublished":"2024-08-27T15:04:40+00:00","dateModified":"2024-08-27T15:04:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/08\/haley-joel-osment_credit-Tinseltown-Shutterstock_Inset-Featureflash-Photo-Agency-Shutterstock.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/08\/haley-joel-osment_credit-Tinseltown-Shutterstock_Inset-Featureflash-Photo-Agency-Shutterstock.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Tinseltown \/ Shutterstock.com | Inset: Featureflash Photo Agency \/ Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/08\/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-talks-taking-a-15-year-break-from-la.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Former Child Star Haley Joel Osment Talks Taking a 15-Year Break from LA"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e","name":"rdewing","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","caption":"rdewing"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/rdewing"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39633,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39630\/revisions\/39633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}