Why Hollywood Won't Cast Haley Joel Osment Anymore

One word: typecasting

All it takes is one breakout performance to make an actor's career. The trouble comes when that same performance also makes you so famous that the world no longer recognizes the difference between you and the roleand audiences refuse to see you as anything but, for example, "that kid from The Sixth Sense."

This has historically been a problem for plenty of adult actors (e.g. George Reeves, who was long thought to have committed suicide after years of unsuccessfully trying to shake his legacy as TV's Superman.) But for someone who turned in his career-defining performance at the age of ten, it's arguably worse. After all, an actor who's been pigeonholed as a superhero, quirky best friend, or musclebound tough guy can always accept his fate and just play various iterations of that role for the rest of his life (or until his body can't take it). But for Osment, who became famous for playing young medium Cole Seer in The Sixth Sense, the window of opportunity for playing a haunted psychic schoolboy was always going to close upon the arrival of puberty, leaving him struggling to be taken seriously as a grownup artist.

He's a victim of the catchphrase curse

Osment's breakout performance didn't just make him a celebrity; it made him a meme. His iconic line in The Sixth Sense is #44 on the AFI's list of the top 100 movie quotes in the history of American cinemawhich is great for the enrichment of popular culture, but not so much for poor Osment, who probably still can't walk down the street, almost 20 years later, without someone shouting "I see dead people!" at him. Much like commercial actors who struggle to find work after becoming too famous for hawking one particular product (when was the last time you saw the "Dude, you're getting a Dell" guy onscreen?), Haley Joel Osment comes with the kind of cultural baggage that might make some producers leery of casting him.

He spent too long offscreen

Osment was just shy of 15 when he starred in the slightly schmaltzy 2003 coming-of-age film Secondhand Lions, a role which could have marked the start of his transition from "child actor" to "teen artist." But instead of following that movie with another, more mature role, he virtually disappeared from the screen for 11 years. Not that we blame himOsment used his long absence to attend college, and also wisely dodged the child actor's curse of having to go through puberty in publicbut in Hollywood, when you're gone that long, you might as well be dead.

Like many famous kids, he had some Hollywood growing pains

Child stars have always struggled with the temptations and tribulations of growing up in the public eye, and while Haley Joel Osment didn't spiral spectacularly out of control in the same way as, say, Lindsay Lohan, he did dabble in the sort of bad behavior that makes headlines and derails careers. In 2006, the then-18-year-old actor was driving under the influence when he crashed into a mailbox and flipped his car; he later pled no contest to misdemeanor drunk driving and drug possession, and was sentenced to probation. The incident didn't ruin Osment's name, but it may have scared him away from Hollywood for awhile, making it that much harder to stage a comeback ten years later.

Casting directors aren't sure what to do with him

As a child, Osment's unusual featuresespecially his close-set, downturned eyeswere an asset that helped him stand out in a sea of generically cute, wide-eyed, snub-nosed kid actors who all looked the same. As an adult, though, Osment's appearance makes him a challenge to cast in grownup roles. He's still a super-gifted actor, but at five feet four inches tall, with round cheeks and a barrel chest, he doesn't look like Hollywood's typical idea of a leading man.

His movies aren't making a splash...

Osment has actually been back in showbiz for several years now, mixing it up with small-scale indie films, television work, and the occasional bit part in a bigger picture. The problem? People aren't seeing the movies he's in, most of which follow a limited release or straight-to-DVD trajectory. Case in point: in 2012, the actor snagged a role in the smart, sweet indie comedy Sassy Pants, and some reviews pointed to his performance (in the role of a flamboyantly gay, eyeliner-wearing cowboy) as the best thing about the film. Unfortunately, the movie itself could only scrape together a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the few critics who bothered to see it at all.

...Or making bank at the box office

Even when he joins a project that should put him back on Hollywood's radar, Osment has had truly bad luck at the box office. For instance, the Entourage moviein which he had a thoroughly fun bit partwas panned by critics and only grossed $10.4 million in its opening weekend (against a $30 million production budget and additional $40.7 million spent on marketing.) And while working with Kevin Smith might have been a smart career move once upon a time, Osment signed on for the director's "True North" series of feature films after Smith stopped being able to get (or even visibly interested in getting) people to see his movies.

But most importantly, he's not looking for a place on the A-list

Here's the thing: if Haley Joel Osment wanted to stage a splashy comeback and become one of Hollywood's most recognizable faces again, he almost certainly couldeither by cashing in on his child star credentials (the guy did work with Spielberg) or even reuniting with M. Night Shyamalan, who's having a little career renaissance of his own. But by Osment's own account, he's less interested in repeating history than he is in trying new things.

In a 2015 interview with The Telegraph, Osment explained that he's choosing oddball characters and independent projects on purpose, just because he appreciates the change to expand his horizons. "It's not about running away from what I did as a kid, but it's a way to keep things fresh and challenging," said Osment. "It's kind of comfortable portraying characters who are kind of unsavory and not so nice. That can be refreshing sometimes."

In other words, what looks like a series of missteps to us might actually be the intentional, thoughtful movements of an actor who's keeping himself out of the spotlight on purpose.