Osment was four years old when he persuaded his mother to let him audition for a Pizza Hut commercial. (It may not have taken much effort to persuade her, since Haley's father was a professional actor.) Osment got the job, and it wasn't too much later that he landed his first film role, playing Forrest Gump's son in a movie that was a critical hit and a commercial success.

The kind of phenomenal early success in the film industry that Osment has experienced can be a recipe for personal disaster. Fame, financial security, and life in a Hollywood bubble don't always add up to the development of a mature, well-grounded individual. But Osment seems determined, with the help of his parents, to become just that. Although he is tutored when he is shooting a movie, when he's not filming he attends secondary school at home in Los Angeles. He plays sports. He hangs out with his friends, "who don't take the acting part of my life too seriously. ... It's not a big part of our friendship." He's an active member of his secondary school drama department, which is currently working on "The Laramie Project." And when he graduates, he plans to attend college. He'll study film, of course, but he also intends to study history and politics.

In an hour-long conference with English-speaking students from Belarus, Osment's poise before the camera was to be expected — he's an actor, after all— but not necessarily his ability to articulate the craft of the profession to which he has devoted himself. He recognizes his good fortune: "When art is your work," Osment said, "you really don't end up working at all." And that is because, he went on to explain, you care so much about what you do. Acting, Osment said, has to do with becoming someone else, and believing it. "The best part of acting is making that transformation into another person," he told the students in Minsk. "That's really what the essence of acting is, [it's] believing that you are someone who you are not." Not coincidentally, for Osment, the hardest part of acting is believing "what your character is living." If it works, if you can do it, you wind up creating what he described as "an alternative reality."

One questioner wondered why so many actors seem to burn out or disappear after making a splash as a child actor. Osment seemed to be aware of the danger of that happening and converted it to a challenge. His goal, he said, is to continue to improve his acting. Each time he portrays a character, he strives for a better performance, building on what he has done in the past and strengthening his art as he moves from role to role. Having played so many child parts, he looks forward to being able, eventually, to play "a villain."

As for the fame that comes along with success in the movie business, Osment told his interlocutors in Minsk that an actor should first and foremost respect his fans. "Without their support, you wouldn't be working, " he said. Still, he recognizes that celebrity can be a distraction from what really matters, which is the work, and the art in the work. He appears to mean it, and to know what he is saying, when he tells people that when it comes to making films, what's important is "the work on the set."

If there is such a thing as equilibrium in life for a famous young actor, Haley Joel Osment seems to be close to achieving it. One way or another, his future lies in film. While he will continue to act, he said, after college he hopes to explore other aspects of moviemaking, including writing and directing. In the meantime he'll keep working, and studying, and playing rock and roll music with some friends. As he does all that, the odds seem good that he will do so with his feet firmly planted on the ground.

December 2004 — Mark Jacobs

Sometimes it's exciting, and sometimes a little bit nerve-wracking when you're working with actors that have had a lot more experience than you. But, more importantly, it's a great opportunity to learn a lot. And I think this film was a good example of that.

When you're working with actors like Michael Caine and Robert Duvall it's a really big opportunity to learn from these guys who have been working in the industry for many, many, many years. And that's exactly what happened on the set, I think.

Everyone who spent time with them on this project learned a little bit about what they had to offer.

The most important thing. Oh, gosh. Well, obviously, I mean, if you're talking the most important, you start off with — I guess with the theme of "Secondhand Lions," which would be family.

But then branching off from that, I think my involvement in art is really, really important for me, whether it's acting, writing, or the music I've been doing. I think that would be another thing that's really important for me right now, what I focus on.

And that's why I enjoy it so much, that it's great to be able to feel on the set and just create an alternate reality. And the more that you work on films and the more that you have experience working with other actors, the quicker and the, I guess, more honestly you can create a character.

And that's what you sort of work on your whole life as an actor, and just every time you work on a film, you work towards creating a more honest depiction of the character and believing more that you are the character. And that's just why I enjoy this so much, is that process.

And the result of that acting is — as you say, can be fame, but I try not to concentrate on that too much because that's not the most important thing about this business for me. It's about the work. And I think if I continue to focus on that, I hope that my career will be able to continue as well as it has been going so far.