hen he was the ripe old age of 11, actor Haley Joel Osment was nomi- nated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as the trau-
matized, ghost-plagued child in The Sixth Sense. Soon after, he was acting for Steven Spielberg as an android yearning to be human in the Oscar-nominated sci-fi adventure A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Other prominent roles followed in Pay It Forward and Secondhand Lions. Then he entered college and essentially disappeared, by choice, from the public eye. Today, Haley Osment (he drops the “Joel” in ca-
sual conversation and has also been dubbed “HaJo” by some press wags) is back in a big way… and playing gay. The 24-year old sports earrings, piercings and cutoff short-shorts in writer-director Coley Sohn’s de- but feature, Sassy Pants. He plays Chip, a flamboyant bartender who is also the much younger boyfriend of the heroine’s gay father. This funny but heartfelt dramedy will screen at Outfest on Saturday, July 14. Osment recently spoke with The Rage Monthly from
Toronto, where he is filming I’ll Follow You Down with gay actor Victor Garber (Godspell, Titanic), Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) and Rufus Sewell (the current Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). Osment is straight, but clearly not concerned about that being his pri- mary defining characteristic.
In Sassy Pants, you are sporting a very different look. Was this your first time wearing Daisy Dukes? Yes, it was. (Laughs) It was a lightning-fast shoot
and I showed up a few days into it. We had a lot of fun putting this character’s look together. What was it about this character or script that attracted you? I read it just a week before. They called me on a
whim and asked if I would do it. I loved the kaleido- scope, the spectrum of characters in the film. Did you have any gay influences or models for the charac- ter? I think we all wanted to avoid Chip being based
on any one person. However, there is an online database of hairstyles we looked at to help deter- mine his look (laughs).
them, the story of someone they knew who died and hadn’t been able to come out. I liked too that it was about two generations and multi-cultural.” In the film, a traditional story is related of a young
frog that is encased in a coconut and emerges com- pletely white (hence the movie’s title). When asked about this, Lee responded, “We were thinking, ‘was the white frog something good or is it something bad?’ We decided it was a metaphor for how parents raise and form their children.” White Frog makes a number of nods to the New Tes-
What was fame at an early age like for you? I remember it very well and really enjoyed it. (Os-
ment’s first big-screen appearance was as the title character’s son in Forrest Gump, the Best Picture of 1994.) It had its material benefits, but I mostly enjoyed the work and the chance to look at great scripts. That still guides me in the acting choices I make. Do you have a favorite role or film to date? It’s hard to choose a favorite, but as an experi-
ence A.I. really stands out. It was months of prep and shooting, learning to film underwater, and of course working with Spielberg from Stanley Kubrick’s original story. What are you working on now? Well, I’m set to do Wake the Dead (an update
tament and traditional Christian themes of rebirth and resurrection. Lee shared about his own diverse religious background, “My father was an atheist; I went to Protestant schools and have a Christian background but am not particularly religious. I hope the movie encourages discussion and debate about Christian conservatism.” What Lee did not know while he was immersed
in pre-production on White Frog was that his own sister was struggling with Asperger’s Syndrome. She was diagnosed just two weeks before cameras
of the Frankenstein story in which he’ll play a college-aged mad scientist) later this year and may squeeze in two other films this summer. I defi- nitely want to do more theatre (Osment co-starred with John Leguizamo in a 2008 Broadway revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo) and major in theatre at NYU. Are you planning to attend the Outfest screening of Sassy Pants? I’m going to try to get there. I know there are a
couple of fests (the film’s writer-director) Coley is trying to get me to.
So, dear readers, if you want to potentially meet the Oscar- nominated star of several of the most successful films of the last 18 years, plan to see Sassy Pants on Saturday, July 14.
rolled. While “totally coincidental,” according to Lee, it brought an unexpected resonance and heft to the project. “I hope the film sparks more discussion among
younger people about both homosexuality and Asperger’s, these controversial topics,” Lee said. White Frog will screen at Outfest on Saturday,
July 21 at the Directors Guild of America Theatre Complex located at 7920 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. For tickets and more informa- tion go to
outfest.org.
JULY 2012 | RAGE monthly 17
HALEY JOEL OSMENT
TO “I PLAY GAY PEOPLE” by chris carpenter
FROM “I SEE DEAD PEOPLE”
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