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Once
the cute, but hypnotic kid from The Sixth
Sense and AI, Haley Joel Osment has grown-up.
Audiences will discover a new Osment in
Secondhand Lions, a comedy/drama about
an isolated teenager who discovers unexpected
love and friendship with two irascible
uncles, played with devilish glee by Michael
Caine and Robert Duvall.
So
how does the 15-year-old think fans will
respond to the new, deeper-voiced personna?
"I
think it'll sort of be a surprise, but
I don't think it's going to weird people
out," he says, while his ever-present
father listens in the background. "It's
been two years since my last film…"
Osment,
who established himself as a child actor
"seeing dead people" in The
Sixth Sense, before reaffirming his talent
in the likes of Pay it Forward and Spielberg’s
A.I, began to lose his voice after he
was signed to play the isolated teenager
in Secondhand Lions, in which he holds
his own with the likes of legends Michael
Caine and Robert Duvall.
Osment
says making the transition from the cute
kid image, that began years ago with Forrest
Gump, to mature adolescent was easy. But
treading the right path through this period
was hard.
"For
me, choice is the most important thing
because I'm going to be an adult actor
pretty soon. So I've got to be choosing
the right roles now so that by the time
I get to that age there will be wide options
available."
Finding
a good script, with a suitable character
in his teens, has been one of the challenges.
"This
period is always really hard for any actor
to go through because you're changing
so quickly and roles aren't available
for very long. If the script is written,
it can sometimes take two years to be
made. This film took 10 years from the
writing of the script until it got made
so that we're constantly growing and changing,
therefore it's harder to find a role that's
available right then. The right screenplay's
got to be out there."
Osment
hasn’t been on screen for two years.
"We were just looking for the right
script and this one came along,"
he explains. "I was going through
similar changes as Walter was at that
time, so it was very convenient."
Secondhand
Lions follows the comedic adventures of
an introverted boy called Walter (Osment)
left on the doorstep of a pair of reluctant,
eccentric great-uncles (Caine and Duvall),
whose exotic remembrances stir the boy's
spirit and re-ignite the men's lives.
The farm, inhabited by cast-off and abandoned
animals, has an obvious significance.
"Walter lets these two old men know
that they still have something to live
for and they in turn teach him how to
be a man. They teach him how to count
as a person and how to live life the right
way."
Outside
of the world of film, Osment says that
it remains important for him to live as
normal life as possible. He won’t
be home-schooled, but attends a regular
high school in Los Angeles, "a big
priority for me as always". He’s
also running with a cross-country team,
"a big sports aspiration for me."
He
also recently got his driving permit ("no
wrecks yet!"), although he hasn’t
ventured into the dating arena. "It's
that time, but there's nothing going on
right now."
He
has always tried to maintain at school
that he’s just a normal kid and wants
to keep it that way. "I think they
got it from the start. All I had to do
was be myself and it was up to them to
get what it was all about and they did.
Acting is not a factor on campus, nor
is it something that I'm doing there,
so they just treat me like the person
I am."
As
an actor, Osment’s perceptions of
acting have also changed as he has grown
older. "Working with those guys (Caine
and Duvall), I really understood what
they were doing a little bit more than
had I done it a couple years ago,"
he says. "I learned how to observe
in the films before and now I'm absorbing
information whenever I can."
Maybe
there’s a budding director here too…
"On top of the acting part, I really
watched the technical part of filmmaking
carefully this time. Jack Green, the cinematographer,
allowed me to really watch how they were
shooting this movie and I got really involved
in watching how they were executing the
film which has always been really interesting
to me."
Even
at fifteen he can enjoy the luxury of
looking back at his earlier films with
a degree of objectivity. "I've been
happy with the stuff I've done, but I
can also see the level of progression
in those movies. I feel that every film
that I do, I'm bringing up the level of
performance. Every actor should learn
from their last performance and use it
in their next one," he says.
"We're
able to create a sense of reality around
every character, because we learn what
it's like to feel like one character,
and we take the reality that we learned
on one film and then add it to the next
film. It's like we're starting with more
information than we did last time."
Osment
returns to school in Autumn and plans
on taking another break from the camera
"until another script comes along."
He
says that is unconcerned about being forgotten.
"I don't think there's any fear of
that. With acting, you can never count
on there being work available. It’s
whatever's there. Some day, there may
not be any work, but I guess that's not
something I'm worried about. If I just
keep doing the right roles, I think that
won't be a problem."
**Many
thanks to OZ
for this article
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