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Sixth Sense kid makes comeback after 14 years

Former Child star in new political comedy Alpha House.

He was best known as the wide-eyed, quivering little boy who saw dead people.

The star of 'The Sixth Sense', Haley Joel Osment, now 25, hasn't been in a sturdy starring role since 2003's 'Secondhand Lions', alongside Michael Caine and Robert Duvall.

And his work since M. Night Shyamalan's chiller, made when he was just 11, has been largely voice-based.

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But now the former child star is returning to screens in a new US comedy series called 'Alpha House'.



Made by Amazon Studios, the production arm of the global retailer, it stars Osment as a young reporter who is assigned to a congressman who's trying to turn his image around.

It also stars Matt Molloy as the senator with the image problem, John Goodman and Clark Johnson from 'The Wire', with the script written by Garry Trudeau, the US cartoonist behind the comic strip 'Doonesbury'.

There's a brilliantly sweary cameo from the legendary Bill Murray too, which has done the rounds on YouTube.

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“For me, it's always the quality of the script,” says Osment of the show. “This was a very funny script.

“It's getting very difficult to get those good independent scripts made these days. A lot of things I worked on in college, we just couldn't get them made.”

Osment first caught the acting bug when he auditioned for a Pizza Hut ad in a shopping mall.

He then snagged a role as Tom Hanks' son 'Forrest Gump', and then a raft of TV appearances before landing the lead in 'The Sixth Sense'.



He also starred in Steven Spielberg's 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence', as the creepy robot boy, and in weepy drama 'Pay It Forward'.

As is par for the course with former child stars, he's found himself in the odd scrape – turning his car over in 2006, and pleading no contest to driving while under the influence and misdemeanour drug possession.

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But now his career looks to be on the up again, with a part in 'The Spoils of Babylon' upcoming too, an all-star comedy series starring Will Ferrell, Tim Robbins, Kristen Wiig, Michael Sheen, Tobey Maguire, Jessica Alba and Val Kilmer, due out next year.

He's also set to star in Kevin Smith's forthcoming horror movie 'Tusk'.

The first three episodes of 'Alpha House' are available in the US on Amazon from November 15.