AH, THOSE fateful teenage years. That petulant brew of hormones that transforms a once delicate cutie-pie whose cherubic smile was a veritable sunbeam of delight into a lumbering creature from some Lovecraftian netherworld assailed by acne, mood swings and a voice that has landed three octaves lower than the late Barry White.
Remember the angel-faced tot from The Sixth Sense who kept seeing dead people? Recall the mystical sprite from A.I., the blond Pinocchio who dreamt of a mother's love?How about the fatherless moppet in the Kevin Spacey film Pay It Forward, who wanted to pass on benevolence and good will to all? Well, Haley Joel Osment has hit 15 and expanded into a gangly youth - as can be seen in his new film Secondhand Lions - who has ditched his pet geckos for Led Zep records and "hanging out" with his mates. And he rather fancies a shot at an action movie.

"Yeah, that would be good," he says in a disarming baritone. "I'm quite into that stuff now. Even a teen comedy if the script was good."

What's this? The funny thing about child stars like Osment is that you think they should be immune to puberty, forever frozen in the childhood sanctity of their screen beginnings. But life always catches up. And the next few years are make or break. Will you rise to the heights of Jodie Foster or plunge into the ignominy of Macaulay Culkin? "You hear of the negative stories," says Osment with the flip but polite ease of someone who had handled thousands of interviews by the time he was ten, "but I think there is more of the positive stuff; you just don't hear about it. I look up to those who've made it through young acting to adult acting and I just aspire to deal with my career in the same way.

"I look up to Ron Howard because of his segue into directing. Making it through that period of transition."

It seems there is one thing that hasn't yet slipped away in Osment's growth spurt: that preternatural wisdom. The sense of a sophisticated adult trying to escape from a child's body (well, teenage body now).

He talks of his "career philosophy" and an awareness of what is required of him to make it to the next stage: "With the film industry it is hard to predict that far into the future. The only plan you can have is to have certain ideals about how to get through the periods that are ahead. Sometimes it is harder to find that role, like the age between 13 and 18. You are growing so fast it is hard to fit a role for you."

So why not pick a role about growing up? The amiable parable of Secondhand Lions lands a taller but no less forlorn Osment in the company of his two eccentric uncles, played with delicious asperity by Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. He is seeking fatherly guidance, a light on the path to manhood. And, among their tall tales of derring-do, he finds the answers he needs.

It's the kind of cornball sentimentality permissible in a story played out against a dry-bed Texas of the Sixties. "The script expresses a universal significance," says its young star. "It sort of represents anyone's period of growing up."

The mirror image with life is obvious. Osment spent much of his time on set listening to the old timers recount the fiery days of their youth. It was a learning experience for the young actor. "They had so much to tell," he says with a laugh. "You couldn't help but learn things, these guys have done so much."

And lasted so long. It's a place well worth aiming for. Not that he is exactly a fledgeling; this is an actor with more than a decade of experience under his belt.

He began at the tender age of four, when his father, the actor Eugene Osment, wondered whether an expansive imagination might be best employed in acting. After a couple of commercials, his son clearly had a taste for it.

"I really enjoyed going to those large-scale auditions, even though I didn't really get what was going on. Being on set for one day of a commercial shoot I just got into it. Which led to my first movie audition for Forrest Gump, and I got that."

From playing Tom Hanks's son in one massive hit, he went straight into another. The supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense revealed a remarkable poise, and his performance as the fatherless Cole Sear (it's a theme), who could spot the walking dead, landed him an Oscar nomination.

The winner that year (2000) was Michael Caine, who took time in his acceptance speech to laud the young professional.

"I don't think you can be born with it," says Osment modestly of his talents. "It is something you have to learn from other people. I just have a tendency towards that kind of thing."

Now the really big guns were taking notice. The rumour mill had him as a dead cert for Harry Potter, until J. K. Rowling demanded an English actor for the role. He claims not to have paid attention to the fuss. After all, Steven Spielberg wanted him for his mysterious Stanley Kubrick project known as A.I.

"That was such a huge honour. After The Sixth Sense came out Steven asked to meet me. He discussed very briefly the project he had in the future. A couple of months later we had a few more meetings, just about the script. And from there it just sort of happened."

It was another stunning performance: a life caught at the edge of humanity, something otherworldly and creepy. It also had people wondering if this was a very weird kid indeed. But as outlandish as the roles became, Osment is at pains to emphasise how run-of-the-mill and grounded his home life has been.

His education has been very structured: he has kept the same on-set tutor for years and never loses track of where he is in the school year. In fact, he is reputedly a straight-A student with a predilection for American history. He mentions going to college and exploring areas other than acting that could lead to a career. Although when pressed on what it could be, he sags and the teenager emerges from beneath the professional veneer.

"I don't know, you know?" he sighs. "There's nothing specific set, but I am only halfway through my schooling right now."

There is something gratifyingly down-to-earth about Osment. There is no sense of the potential peevishness that might stem from having reached stardom by the age of ten. This may be partly down to the steady upbringing: his father has guided his son's career skilfully to this point, while his mother is a teacher.

He has also been keeping good company. Duvall, Caine, Hanks, Spielberg and Spacey are not ones to play the games of entourage and demand. It's little wonder, then, that Osment prefers to talk about his craft than about girls and parties. Even at 15 you wonder if he has ever stayed up later than 10pm.

"You just enjoy what was good with the movie," he says sagely, "and all the bonuses that come with a movie being a success and not taking it for anything more than it was."

The future may indeed be an unpredictable thing, but surely it will make room for Osment. The lost boy of his early years will have to be jettisoned, but through the maze of acne, girls and indifferent slasher movies, there may just emerge a real actor.

**Many thanks to Alan Nicholas for this article.