The Sixth Sense child star Haley Joel Osment has changed a lot since his breakout role

Haley Joel Osment was just five-years-old when he appeared alongside Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. For those who don't recognize him, he played Forrest Junior in the legendary movie.

In 1999, five years after the release of Forrest Gump, Osment played the lead role in horror movie The Sixth Sense. Despite the huge success, and even being nominated for an Oscar at 11-years-old, the actor decided to leave Los Angeles for New York in 2006 - something his parents had always been supportive of.

"My parents used to say when I first started out in this industry, 'If it's ever not fun, you can quit tomorrow,'" the 36-year-old told E! News.

"And when I got to be college age, I got to go off and study theater and really think hard about whether I wanted to do this as my career in life."

Osment resided in New York for 15 years, after enrolling at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2006.

In an interview with the outlet, he recalls feeling grateful to have been away from Los Angeles during those years, which he described as being ' a very predatory, aggressive kind of tabloid engagement with certain celebrities'.

However, he didn't stay out of the industry for good during that time, working on video games, and TV shows.

Now, he's back in Hollywood, having recently starred in Happy Valley 2 and hit TV series Wednesday.

Despite having done the job on a large scale since he was a teen, Osment admitted finding it difficult to get his head around social media, which is now a key part of celebrity life.

However, once he found the balance between promotion and sharing to much of his private life, the 36-year-old said: "I resisted it for so long and now it's like, 'Hey, it's fun to do some posts.'"

He's not doing too badly, as Osment, who is the brother of Hannah Montana star Emily Osment, has gained an impressive 141k followers on Instagram.

Most recently, he shared snaps with his sister as they enjoyed a trip to Belize, in. which they visited The Great Blue Hole.

In his career, the star was recently honored at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, as he was given the Spotlight Presentation: Craft in Focus Award.

The event also saw his latest film, How to Date Again, premiere.