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Here's what The Sixth Sense's Haley Joel Osment looks like now

Haley Joel Osment shot to fame at just 10 years old, after he uttered one of the most memorable lines in horror film history: “I see dead people”.

The child star was a key character in M Night Shyamalan’s 1999 film opposite Bruce Willis, and has been working as an actor ever since.

Haley Joel Osment as Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense.
Haley Joel Osment is best known for his role as Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense. Photo: Buena Vista Pictures

The Silicon Valley actor has managed to keep a relatively low profile and didn't join social media until he was in his late 20s.

Now 34, he has starred in Netflix’s Ted Bundy crime-drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, Taika Waititi’s What We Do In the Shadows series, and The Boys.

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One of the ways Osment has managed to go relatively unnoticed is that he looks completely different from his role in the horror movie.

In a candid interview with The Guardian, the star admitted that he grew a beard ‘to try and hide in public’ in 2011, and took on more risqué roles to shed his child star image.

Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis in the 1999 film.
Bruce Willis played a child psychologist tasked with helping Osment's character. Photo: Buena Vista Pictures

He played a Nazi in Yoga Hosers, a millionaire in Entourage and virgin teacher Ed Cole in Sex Ed.

“That was definitely a very fun period of playing a lot of bad guys,” he told the publication.

The actor has always been an over-achiever and shared a short recollection of what it was like working on The Sixth Sense.

The director wanted to film a scene where Osment confronted a bloody ghost, but the crew only had 10 minutes left to get it done.

To get into the right headspace, the child star rapidly threw himself at a door multiple times, to be ‘sufficiently shaken’ before the scene.

“If they’d known I was going to do it, [the crew] probably would have stopped me,” he remembered. “It came to me spontaneously — and I guess it worked.”

Haley Joel Osment and sister Emily Osment at an awards ceremony.
Haley Joel Osment and his sister Emily Osment are all grown up. Photo: Getty

Osment isn’t the only child actor in his family, in fact, his sister Emily Osment famously played Miley Cyrus’ best friend in Hannah Montana.

The siblings appeared together on screen on The Kominsky Method for the first time, with Osment saying how ‘excited’ he was.

“Even though we don’t have a storyline together, I think it’s the first time I’ve been on the same show as my sister, which I thought might be kind of cool,” he told EW. He added that working alongside acting greats Alan Arkin and Michael Douglas was “a very exciting prospect”.

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