Actor Haley Joel Osment has revealed he would “come home from school” to voicemail messages from Bruce Willis in the years after The Sixth Sense.
Osment appeared in the 1999 film when he was just 11-years-old. While he had been acting since 1994 in Forest Gump, it was his role in M Night Shyamalan’s film that brought him intense media attention after he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role.
Osment has revealed how Willis supported him not just when the film came out, but in the years following the film’s release.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Osment, who is now 36, explained: “I heard from [Bruce] a lot after it came out in those subsequent years. He’d leave voicemails at the house from time to time, just checking in.
“He would just call out of the blue, so sometimes it was in the lead up before travel. We went to Japan together twice, if I remember correctly, to open Sixth Sense in different cities. So he would call ahead of that, and then sometimes, I would just come home from school and the answering machine would be blinking and it’d be him going like, ‘Hey, Haley Joel. Just saying hi.’”
Haley Joel Osment And Bruce Willis in ‘The Sixth Sense’. CREDIT: Getty Images
He went on to reveal that he still has the tapes somewhere. He added that Willis was “the first gigantic celebrity that I’d worked with at an age where I was aware of his stardom”.
Reflecting on their time working together, Osment, added: “He did everything in such a cool way, and had such charisma, and was the person that you want on set setting the tone for the sort of movie we were making, because things usually revolve around the number on on the call sheet.”
Osment went on to say he has “not spoken to” Willis “since the news of his health in recent years”.
In February 2023, Willis’ family announced that the actor’s aphasia condition – affecting his cognitive abilities and forcing him into retirement – had developed into frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
“We now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia,” Willis’ family wrote in a statement with the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. “Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis.”
Since his diagnosis, Willis’ wife Emma Heming has continued to share updates about Willis’ health on social media. In March, she hit back at reports that her husband is “living without joy” as a result of his deterioration.
Osment’s comments are similar to what he said previously about working with Willis on The Sixth Sense back in August.
At the time, he said: “It was so wonderful working with him and, I mean, I was so grateful to have had that experience and to meet this guy who was the epitome of a movie star and a really nice person.”
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