Haley Joel Osment: ‘I see casting couches!’

Image Credit: Andy Kropa/Getty Images

After inking a science-fiction role in Wake the Dead last year and popping up in the preview for Sassy Pants this January, Haley Joel Osment has pulled a kid star comeback hat trick, landing the lead role in I’ll Follow You Down. The formerly Muppet-faced Oscar nominee (for 1999's The Sixth Sense) will star as Erol, the son of a scientist who mysteriously disappeared on a business trip. Years later, Erol makes an unsettling discovers about his father’s whereabouts.

Richie Mehta wrote and will direct Down. Lee Kim, who is producing the film under Resolute Films and Entertainment said, “Our main challenge was to find the right actor [with] the perfect balance of innocence, honesty and intelligence; Haley provides just that.”

Osment finds himself in an interesting position with this new slew of roles. Clearly, he’s having to pay his dues and re-establish himself, but it says a lot that these indie projects are getting noticed at all. Young actors from Kirsten Dunst to Shailene Woodley and Abigail Breslin are proving these days that starting out as a child actor isn’t necessarily a career-killer.

I’m not saying Osment is going to be competing with Shia LaBeouf or Taylor Lautner for tentpole popcorn flicks any time soon — their transitions from kiddie cuties to leading men proved seamless while Osment struggled with a failed Broadway debut and brushes with the law. But, on the spectrum of Daniel Radcliffe to Taran Noah Smith, it looks like there may just be some hope for Haley Joel Osment after all.

What do you think, PopWatchers? Are you hankering for more Haley? Has he gotten enough distance from his Sixth Sense days to establish himself as a legitimate adult actor? Are you intrigued by his upcoming roster of sci-fi indies and Sassy coming-of-age films?

Read more:
‘Sassy Pants’ trailer: Why yes, that is Haley Joel Osment
Grown-up Haley Joel Osment returns, creates monsters in ‘Wake the Dead’
Haley Joel Osment to star in coming-of-age comedy. But can the child star come of age himself?

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‘Charlie’s Angels’: ‘Smallville’ producers talk their reboot’s creative approach, casting, and… a dog named Bosley?!

Image Credit: James Devaney/WireImage.comMiami is officially the hottest crime-fighting town on television. See: CSI: Miami, Dexter, and Burn Notice. Since you can’t have too many guardian angels keeping the peace in Miami (especially now that evil pro basketball racketeer LeBron James lives there, not to mention the occasional mischief making visit from those Kardashian sisters), TV’s sexiest and clearly most sinful setting will soon be home to the three more sentinels: Charlie’s Angels, a new television version of the classic 70s action drama slated for next year on ABC. Guiding the project will be the guys who successfully put young Clark Kent on the road to Superman in Smallville, the producing team of Al Gough and Miles Millar. Drew Barrymore—who produced and starred in two big screen translations—will serve as exec producer. Why set the show in the present-day Miami? In order to help the new show distinguish itself from its predecessors while remaining true to its core values. “Sun and surf are in the Charlie’s Angels DNA,” says Gough. “But we didn’t want to revisit Los Angeles, since that was done in both the original TV series and the movie series.”

ABC (the network home of the original Charlie’s Angels) and Sony (the studio owner of the franchise) have been keen to relaunch the Charlie’s Angels franchise, which premiered in 1976 with Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson in the leads. (Fawcett left after the first season and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd.) At one point, Lost exec producer Carlton Cuse had been recruited to help develop a new version of the show. Last fall, Josh Friedman, exec producer of Fox’s now-defunct Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, was tapped to write a pilot script, but it was never produced. Gough doesn’t want to give too many details away about the angle he and Millar are taking on Charlie’s Angels, but he would say this: “It won’t be campy or retro. The characters are real and emotionally grounded, but they still like to have fun, wear great clothes, solve crime and kick some serious ass. There are three new angels and one mysterious Charlie—and he’s still on the box, not skyping or teleconferencing.” Charlie’s lack of physical presence could be a source of mystery in the show, as Gough adds the following: “Yes, there is a reason why, and no we won’t tell you now.”

Why did the Smallville producers want to make Charlie’s Angels their next big TV project? “Because after tackling Superman, the pop culture third rail didn’t scare us anymore,” jokes Gough. “We were approached by Sony Television, and to be honest, we initially found the prospect very daunting. The question when approaching any reboot is ‘Why now?’ How do you make it relevant for today’s audiences? Miles and I believe we figured out a way to do that. We pitched it to our partners Leonard Goldberg, Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen, who have been the caretakers of this franchise, and they really liked it. More importantly, ABC got excited about it.” Cynics may roll their eyes at yet another Hollywood reboot of a classic entertainment brand (hello, Hawaii Five-O)-—and Gough gets it. Still, he hopes viewers will give the show a chance. “We realize that we have a big target on our backs,” he says, “but we hope to surprise people and bring a whole new generation to Charlie’s Angels.”

As for the actresses who play these new century TV Angels, there have been reports that producers are looking for a multi-ethnic trio. Gough will only say that the casting process has begun. “The timetable is NOW,” he says. “Seriously, we started this week with our casting director John Papsidera (The Dark Knight, Inception). We now have the arduous task of seeing hundreds of potential Angels.” Will a recognizable star voice intone the part of the mysteriously distant Charlie? Gough is keeping mum on that one. (Dynasty’s John Forsythe, who died earlier this year, did the honors in both the first TV series and the movies.) The team is also hunting for someone to play Charlie’s liason to his do-gooding damsels, Bosley, played in the first TV series by the late David Doyle and represented in the Drew Barrymore films by Bill Murray and Bernie Mac. Gough says that in a “huge departure from canon,” the new Bosley will be… a dog. “KIDDING,” says Gough. “Unless the test audiences hate the real Bosley we cast, and then we are totally going the pooch route.”

The fundamental appeal of Charlie’s Angels? It’s about three smart, capable women who not only save the day, but also have each other’s back. It’s about friendship. It’s about teamwork. And you only have to deal with your boss via speakerphone! I think that appeal is timeless.”

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‘Hobbit’ director Peter Jackson talks about casting a ‘heartthrob’ dwarf (Exclusive)

Image Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage.comIt’s been a long time coming, but there was finally cause for rejoicing in Middle-earth last week when director Peter Jackson announced he’d cast several key roles in his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel, The Hobbit. The casting of Martin Freeman of the UK Office fame as Bilbo Baggins was widely expected, but some Tolkien fans were surprised and slightly befuddled to see English actor Richard Armitage, best known for the BBC series MI-5, cast as Thorin Oakenshield, the gruff leader of a company of dwarves. What was Jackson doing hiring a hunky actor to play a character most often depicted in illustrations — and in the 1977 animated Hobbit movie — as a squat, crabby, Wilford Brimley-ish old dwarf with a long white beard? In an interview (after the jump), Jackson tells EW the choice is actually right in line with the casting of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn and Orlando Bloom as Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“Thorin Oakenshield is a tough, heroic character, and he certainly should give Leggie and Aragorn a run for their money in the heartthrob stakes — despite being four feet tall,” says Jackson, who also announced seven lesser-known English, Irish, and Kiwi actors in the roles of other dwarves. “In Middle-earth, dwarves are a noble race and have a culture and physical appearance which sets them apart from humans. It’s fun to develop these different cultures for the movie, and we are doing much more with dwarves this time around than we did with Gimli in Lord of the Rings. Our company of thirteen dwarves in The Hobbit lets us explore many different personalities — and costume and make-up designs will support the type of character each actor plays. Richard is a powerful actor with a wide range, and we’re very excited to be handing Thorn over to him. In this partnership, we need Richard to give us his depth, range, and emotion as an actor — and we’ll make him look like a dwarf!”

For more of Jackson’s comments on the casting of The Hobbit, check out the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday.

Read more:
Peter Jackson vents his frustration over the bitter ‘Hobbit’ labor dispute: ‘I’m out of my depth’
‘The Hobbit’: Martin Freeman to play Bilbo Baggins; other roles also cast

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‘Terra Nova’ casting is almost complete; production begins next month in Australia

20th Century Fox TV has found the youths who’ll help round out Jason O’Mara’s family in the upcoming time-traveling drama Terra Nova. Landon Liboiron (DeGrassi: The Next Generation) will play Josh, the 17-year-old of Jim (O’Mara) and Elisabeth (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Shelley Conn) Shannon who also finds a father figure in Frank Taylor (Avatar’s Stephen Lang). Newcomer Naomi Scott will play his sister Maddy, a bright 15-year-old, while newcomer Alana Mansour has signed on as Zoe, the youngest member of the Shannon clan who is smuggled into the time-traveling portal that takes everyone to the Terra Nova settlement.

Other actors who have previously joined the high-concept series include Mido Hamada (24) and Allison Miller (Boston Legal). The drama that bows next May still has one more series regular role to fill before it starts production. The series takes place 100 years in the future.

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'Glee' Star Chris Colfer's Mini-Me Casting Was Spot-On - MTV.com

A grilled cheese Jesus (or rather, Grilled Cheesus) wasn't the only visual worthy of a double-take on last night's episode of "Glee." The Fox series' casting directors should give themselves a big pat on the back for finding a nearly identical-looking actor to portray Chris Colfer's character, Kurt Hummel, at the age of 8.

In a series of flashbacks set to Colfer's melancholy rendition of the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand," Kurt recalls the days of his childhood following his mother's death. We see mini-Kurt walking through a cemetery hand-in-hand with dad Burt (Mike O'Malley) and later enjoying a lighthearted tea party.

The actor cast as young Kurt is 13-year-old Adam Kolkin. A high school freshman at Los Alamitos High School, Kolkin is a relative unknown who began acting at the age of 9 and has appeared in numerous television commercials for Disney, Advil and LG phones. His most notable film credit is the 2009 indie "Still the Drums."

Kolkin spoke with his local newspaper, The Orange County Register, about landing the plum part and recalled just how surprised casting directors were with his uncanny resemblance to Colfer.

"They all kept saying, 'Oh my god, oh my god,' " Kolkin said. After leaving the audition, Kolkin was quickly called back to sing a song. "I had prepared 'Walking on Sunshine,' " he said. "They were really surprised."

Kolkin spent a day on set filming his scenes, and although Colfer was not scheduled to shoot that day, he stopped by to meet his mini-me. "It was so cool," Kolkin said. "[The cast] were really nice."

Another happy parallel with his "Glee" character? Kolkin is also a member of his high school's show choir. "I had heard the show choir was really good, and I was interested in auditioning," he said. "I wasn't in [the show choir] Xtreme when I did the show but I am now."

There may be more flashbacks to come for "Glee." EW.com reported that casting calls have gone out for younger versions of Puck, Santana, Rachel, Brittany and Mercedes for the season's seventh episode.

Did you do a double-take when Colfer's mini-me appeared onscreen? Let us know in the comments!

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