Bruce Willis Did the Most Heartwarming Thing After The Sixth Sense

Haley Joel Osment, who was only 10 years old during the filming of the blockbuster horror film, recalled to Entertainment Weekly how he would come home from school to discover messages that the Die Hard and Hudson Hawk star would leave for him.

The content of the messages would vary, sometimes having Willis “just checking in” and hoping the child actor was doing well, while other times just dropping a line to tell the kid hello.

Haley Joel Osment revealed that he and Willis stayed in contact for years after the end of the production, particularly in the months that followed the release of the film in the United States. The two would travel to other countries with other members of the cast and crew during premieres, including journeying as far as Japan on two different occasions.

But when the young actor was stateside and going to school, he told interviewers that he’d come home often and hear Bruce Willis on his home’s voicemail “just saying hi.”

The Bruce Willis voicemails weren’t the only thing that young Haley Joel Osment had to be excited about. The Sixth Sense went on to become the second highest-grossing film of 1999, raking in nearly $700 million in worldwide box office receipts.

The M. Night Shyamalan film was only edged out by the George Lucas blockbuster Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, which brought in more than $1 billion in ticket sales globally.

As far as the existence of the Bruce Willis voicemails today, Haley Joel Osment told interviewers that he knows that they had been saved and that he needs to find them.

They are certainly a reminder of the kindness that the veteran actor showed his co-star and are something that he hinted he would share with the Death Becomes Her star’s daughters.

Bruce Willis retired from acting following an announcement in March 2022 that he had been diagnosed with aphasia, which soon tragically progressed to become frontotemporal dementia.

Along with the Bruce Willis voicemails, Haley Joel Osment carries with him many great memories of the megastar, both on set and off.

Previously, Osment had worked with Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks, playing the son of his title character in the 1994 hit film Forrest Gump.

Osment revealed that with Willis it was different, however, as he was just old enough to have seen some of Willis’s films prior to being cast in a film with one of the actors that he was growing up watching.

In fact, Haley Joel Osment thought that Willis would show up on the set of The Sixth Sense and have a real-life persona that mirrored the character he played in the 1988 Christmas film Die Hard.

But the young actor soon discovered that Willis was “much more subdued and academic,” and always had a twinkle in his eyes.

Sources: Variety