Haley Joel Osment makes Broadway debut

Willing to talk about his DUI arrest
The actor is not skittish about addressing a touchy subject such as his DUI arrest in July 2006. After crashing his car into a mailbox near Los Angeles, he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor drunken driving and marijuana possession. His mug shot blasted to the far reaches of the Internet, and much to his dismay, he became lumped into the same train wreck category as Mel Gibson.

“That night was an example of being a foolish high schooler sort of screwing around before college starts,” he says. “It’s unfortunate that when those things happen, they just talk about Hollywood when really we have a national problem ... with all types of substances and types of dangerous behavior. ... You know, by treating it just as a Hollywood thing, we ignore the fact that ... it can happen to anybody.”

At the same time, he says, it’s the price he must pay for being well known. The worst thing about that incident is that he “betrayed his family’s trust,” says Osment, whose sister Emily Osment plays Miley Cyrus’ best friend on “Hannah Montana.”

He walked the red carpet for the recent Broadway opening of “Equus,” starring Daniel Radcliffe, but says he’s “never interested in the business of promoting myself. I really don’t care if people know who I am or what’s said about me. I’m just here to do a job.”

He discussed his child-star experience with Radcliffe, who turned to an edgy theater role to shake off his “Harry Potter” image. “He’s got it a lot tougher than I do, ’cause there’s merchandise out there with him on it,” Osment says, with a laugh.

He dreams of directing someday but says good film roles are scarce for actors in his age group.

“We have to be very deliberate and very careful about the choices that (we) make because there are some projects that I could have done,” says Osment, whose last major film was 2003’s “Secondhand Lions” opposite Michael Caine and Robert Duvall, who co-starred in the original Broadway production of “American Buffalo” in 1976.

He has since acted in the film “Home of the Giants,” and co-stars with Olympia Dukakis in the upcoming indie “Montana Amazon.”

“You always have to avoid working for the sake of putting yourself out there,” Osment says. “I’ve been very happy with the way things have gone throughout my life, and I have my dad (actor Eugene Osment) to thank for this, because the standard has just been, ‘Is it a good story? Is it something that I care enough about doing to do? And is it the right type of character, too?”’

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