Haley Joel Osment first appeared on screen at just five years old, starring opposite Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump as Forrest Junior.
A few years later, in 1999, he took on the central role in The Sixth Sense, a performance that brought him major acclaim and an Oscar nomination while he was still only 11.
Even after reaching that level of success so young, Osment later chose to step away from Los Angeles and move to New York in 2006, with support from his family.
“My parents used to say when I first started out in this industry, ‘If it’s ever not fun, you can quit tomorrow,'”
The 38-year-old shared that his parents gave him the freedom to decide what path he wanted to take as he got older.
“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.”
He went on to live in New York for 15 years after enrolling at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006, graduating in 2011.
Speaking to E! News, Osment said he appreciated being away from Los Angeles during a period he felt was marked by intense celebrity scrutiny.
In that interview, he described the era as being ” a very predatory, aggressive kind of tabloid engagement with certain celebrities”.
Although he had left LA, he did not leave acting behind entirely, continuing to take on work in television, film, animation and video games.
These days, Osment is back in Hollywood and has recently appeared in Wednesday and is attached to upcoming projects including The ‘Burbs, How to Date Again and Kingdom Hearts IV.
He has also spoken candidly about adjusting to the modern demands of fame, especially when it comes to social media, which now plays such a large role in celebrity culture.
After figuring out how to promote projects without oversharing his personal life, he said:
“I resisted it for so long and now it’s like, ‘Hey, it’s fun to do some posts.'”
That approach seems to be working, with Osment now boasting 141k followers on Instagram. He is also known as the brother of Hannah Montana actor Emily Osment.
More recently, he posted photos from a trip to Belize with his sister, where they visited The Great Blue Hole.
Professionally, Osment was also recognized at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, where he received the Spotlight Presentation: Craft in Focus Award.
The festival also hosted the premiere of his newest film, How to Date Again.