Former child star Haley Joel Osment has revealed why he took a break from the spotlight.
The now 36-year-old actor found fame as the dead people-seeing Cole Sear in the 1999 psychological thriller film The Sixth Sense. The role saw a young Osment quickly become a household name and earned him an Oscar nomination at just 11 years old.
After a flashy career as a child, he decided to take a break during his college years which he says also coincided with a time of "predatory" tabloid engagement.
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"My parents used to say when I first started out in this industry, 'If it's ever not fun, you can quit tomorrow," he told E! News.
"And when I got to be college age, I got to go off and study theatre and really think hard about whether I wanted to do this as my career in life."
While he took some time away from Hollywood relocating from Los Angeles to New York City to study at NYU's Tische School of the Arts in 2006, the world of celebrity and tabloid media became "pretty tense", he recalls.
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"Those were pretty tense years in terms of how celebrity was in Los Angeles," he told E! News explaining that there was "this predatory, aggressive kind of tabloid engagement with certain celebrities".
"I remember being very happy to not be making my home in Los Angeles at that time," he added.
The star ended up spending about 15 years living in New York before returning to Los Angeles and the flashy lights of Hollywood.
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And despite some uncertainty and needing to take some time to reflect on whether he wanted to continue acting as a career, he says he always felt drawn to the job.
"The answer has always been yes at all these junctures," he explained. "It's 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."
Osment's latest film is the upcoming film Blink Twice, which was Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut. It comes three decades after he made his screen debut in the 1994 film Forrest Gump.
As for returning to Los Angeles, the symbolic centre of the film and tv industry, Osment says it has "mellowed out a bit" from the "tense" celebrity culture that he observed over the years.
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Title: Former child star Haley Joel Osment reveals why he moved away from Hollywood: 'Predatory'
Sourced From: celebrity.nine.com.au/latest/former-child-star-haley-joel-osment-reveals-why-he-moved-away-from-hollywood-predatory/18a829ef-3efd-4604-a147-eddaa61e704c
Published Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2024 01:08:00 GMT
