Seeing dead people was a “great experience” for Haley Joel Osment! The Sixth Sense actor opened up to Huffington Post Live on Friday, Sept. 19, recalling what it was like to work with Hollywood aces Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis, whom host Ricky Camilleri referred to as “difficult.”
“I guess I’m lucky,” Osment, 26, said of working with Willis on the 1999 horror flick. “I don’t have to be diplomatic, because I had a great experience with him. When we were in The Sixth Sense, we were in the mode of like, ‘Alright, we have this wonderful thing, let’s not mess it up.’ So everybody was in a good place. [Director M. Night Shyamalan] was able to create a great atmosphere on the set. Bruce was having fun making that movie.”
Osment’s Tusk costar Justin Long and director Kevin Smith had not-so-pleasant experiences working with Willis in the past. “I have worked with people who are difficult in the past,” Long told HuffPost Live on Sept. 10 when asked about his Live Free or Die Hard costar. “And I’ve made an effort to not talk about it publicly.” Smith, meanwhile, claimed in a 2010 interview that working with Willis was “soul-crushing.”
Osment said of his Tusk colleagues: “Yeah, I feel bad for those guys because they had a terrible experience, but mine was good. They were like, ‘Tell me about Bruce.’ And he was nice to me,” Osment said with a laugh.
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The Oscar nominee also touched on working with Thornton on the upcoming Entourage movie. “He’s the coolest guy,” Osment said. “Billy Bob is awesome… we talk a lot of baseball on the set.” Osment, who auditioned for the film adaptation of HBO’s smash series, revealed he plays Thornton’s son in the flick. “We start to make trouble for Ari,” he said.
As for his new onscreen persona? “It’s a very fun character… playing somebody with some dirt and some grit is a lot of fun,” he said.
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