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American Morning

Showbiz Today Reports: Haley Joel Osment Discusses Role in 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence'

Aired July 10, 2001 - 11:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LAURIN SYDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alcohol problems have rocked one of the world's most popular boy bands. The Backstreet Boys have postponed their world tour because member A.J. McLean has gone into rehab treatment for alcohol and depression. The group told our Michael Okwu that McLean had been having problems for awhile.

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MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So you guys were on tour when A.J. announced that he was going to drop out for a little while. What exactly happened?

KEVIN RICHARDSON, BACKSTREET BOYS: Well, at the beginning of this leg of the tour, of the U.S. tour, we had come together as a group and basically tried to get A.J. some counseling and some group counseling before the tour started. We were concerned about his lifestyle changes in the past year and they were starting to affect his work and affect us and the way we do things together. And it was a concern of ours. We were concerned about his health and well being as well as his performance.

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SYDNEY: The group hopes to resume their tour with McLean August 7, in Vancouver.

Reviews have been somewhat mixed for Steven Spielberg's "A.I," but most critics agree that the performance of young Haley Joel Osment is astounding. His portrayal of the robot that wants to be a real boy tugs at the heart strings. I cried.

Our Sherri Sylvester sat down with the in-demand youngster, to talk about Steven Spielberg and the late Stanley Kubrick.

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JUDE LAW, ACTOR: You are neither flesh nor blood. Not a dog or a cat or a canary. You were designed and built specific, like the rest of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SHERRI SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You've been acting for a long time. What did you learn as an actor? How did you grow as an actor, working on this film?

HALEY JOEL OSMENT, ACTOR: Every time you do a scene, evey time you work with people, you can better yourself and better your acting. And with the people that were on the set, you could learn just by watching, by working with them, by them instructing you, even, sometimes when you're lucky. That environment is just great for an actor to better yourself in.

SYLVESTER: Did Steven introduce you to any cool video games?

OSMENT: We had a lot of conversations. I actually never played with him in a video game, but he actually did have a lot to say about video games. He was pretty up on his video game knowledge.

SYLVESTER: Yes, he's pretty into that.

OSMENT: He's pretty into that, yes.

SYLVESTER: What kind of mood does he create on the set?

OSMENT: He's fun and also pretty cool. You have a really fast environment on the set. Steven's a very fast director. Very accurate with all the scenes. Just a really fun, cool learning environment.

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OSMENT: Mommy will love a real boy. The Blue Fairy will make me into one.

LAW: Is Blue Fairy Mecha orga, man, or woman?

OSMENT: Woman.

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SYLVESTER: Tell me about acting with Teddy.

OSMENT: Teddy was just so great. He's just this little two foot bear, but yet he functions and acts like a real bear. He had to hit his marks, say his lines on cue, act accordingly to whatever was happening in the scene, and even react to something that was thrown at him during the scene, so working with him was really cool because it was like working with a real actor that looked very different from a real actor.

SYLVESTER: What was the best ride?

OSMENT: The car was cool and functioning like a real car, but I'd say the underwater stuff was the best because there's nothing to compare to doing that acting underwater.

SYLVESTER: Tell me a little bit about that. How did you prepare? I'm assuming you had not acted underwater before. OSMENT: No, never before. There's a lot of training for that before shooting -- diving, stuff like that -- and then segued from that into doing the actual scenes and rehearsing them underwater.

SYLVESTER: Did you take scuba?

OSMENT: Yes.

SYLVESTER: You did?

OSMENT: Yes.

SYLVESTER: Are you a good swimmer.

OSMENT: I'm a good swimmer. I can hold my own underwater. This training helped me become more comfortable, so that these scenes would be a lot easier to do underwater.

SYLVESTER: Are you certified?

OSMENT: Not certified. Actually, I didn't have time to become certified, but maybe sometime during the summer. That's something I'd be interested in, because this was a lot of fun to do, and perhaps doing it out in the ocean would be something cool to do.

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OSMENT: I'm a boy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are a real boy?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least as real as I've ever made one.

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