Based on a wild, infuriating true story, The Devil Has a Name comes from director/star Edward James Olmos (Selena), and the auteur blends all kinds of tones, vibes, and incredible actors to tell the muckraking tale of a farmer (David Strathairn, Good Night and Good Luck) who makes a bad deal with a manipulative oil executive (Kate Bosworth, Superman Returns) and finds his almond farm's water supply getting poisoned. With the help of enterprising environmental lawyer Martin Sheen (The West Wing), can a sense of justice be found? Or does the devil have his hands too entwined in our capitalistic world?
I was lucky enough to speak with Haley Joel Osment, who plays the wildly raucous and assholish ad agent Alex Gardner, over the phone. We chatted about the American prescience of the film, the joys of working with titans like Strathairn and Olmos, an incredibly wild scene with Pablo Schreiber, his research process, Power Beard Rankings (you'll see), and more. Plus: We chatted about his legacy as an actor, and where his character from The Sixth Sense might be today.
Collider: Starting off, what initially sparked you to this script and this story of The Devil Has a Name?
HALEY JOEL OSMENT: Well, this was one of those projects where the first thing I saw was the incredible cast list. They had basically cast most of the other roles. So I was looking down there seeing David Strathairn, Alfred Molina, Martin Sheen, and I was getting pretty excited. And then to have the script be such a timely one. I mean, we're already living in such a period of multiple ecological crises and a lack of regulation of these industries. So it just seemed like the perfect project to want to do. And on top of all of that, the opportunity to work with Edward James Olmos as director was just as cool as I knew it would be.
What are some of his differences or similarities as a director versus a co-star or an actor?
OSMENT: I only got to be in one scene with him where he was acting and directing at the same time, but that was definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole experience. [In the scene] we're at this truck stop diner where I'm trying to sell his character and David Strathairn's character on this land deal that the oil company wants. And just seeing him work with Rey [Reynaldo Villalobos], the cinematographer, and doing this really great character but also being able to direct while sitting at this small table with us, or giving a few notes to me and David while playing this character at the same time, it was just a really, really cool thing to see. Because he's been directing for, I think almost just as long as he's been acting, but he definitely approaches things from the perspective of an actor and what the actors need to deliver the scene. And that's just always fun to be a part of.
I was curious about that scene. I feel like if you asked me to sit down at a scene with two titans like David Strathairn and Edward James Olmos, it would feel very intimidating. Was there a level of pressure you put on yourself as an actor to come to work? Or was it kind of just like any other scene?
OSMENT: There's definitely a little bit of pressure, I've got so much respect for the two of them, but that's the good kind of energy that you want to push you to come up to their level and to give a good performance. One thing that helped make it not too nerve-wracking, apart from the fact that they're both such nice guys and such great people to collaborate with, is that my character is in way over his head and thinks that he is this genius of industry. And he thinks he's a lot smarter than he is. So he comes into the scene with all of this false confidence and all of this arrogance. So having that energy in the scene sort of overruled any of the kind of natural respect that you'd have for these guys. It's fun playing because, throughout this movie, this character is just so disrespectful and offensive to all of these people where in real life, it's like, "Oh, if you're in a courtroom with Martin Sheen as the lawyer, there's a certain politeness and certain behavior that you're supposed to do." And my character just blows through all of that because he's such a jerk. So that's kind of a fun thing to do.
It was very fun to watch, too. And I'm curious, in playing kind of a jerk, kind of a bravado-fueled character, are you interested in finding any sense of empathy or sympathy or were you just kind of down to make him look as bad as possible?
OSMENT: Oh, sure. I mean, to play any character... Very few people in life believe that they're the bad guy. There's always some people, but... [laughter] He knows that he bends the rules, that he's behaving in an immoral way, but he has his reasons and he thinks he's the star of the show. So he definitely sympathizes for himself. [laughter] And then when he gets bullied and controlled by Ezekiel [Pablo Schreiber's character] and is immediately so emasculated and threatened, you can see that weakness and insecurity at the heart of the character that sort of makes him more three-dimensional than the persona that he tries to project out into the world.
I also wanted to touch on that scene. I was really taken on a journey from that scene.
OSMENT: Yeah! [laughter]
It starts from a kind of suspense genre threatening place, and then the status shifts. There's even, from my perspective, kind of a homoerotic subtext in some of it.
OSMENT: Definitely!
What was it like staging that scene, playing that scene? Walk me through the process of that scene.
OSMENT: Pablo is great. And he just comes into these scenes like a freight train, just with so much intensity that it makes it very easy to get into the reality of everything. And Eddie did such a good job directing it. There's this real terror for Alex, because at first it's just getting caught committing a crime, basically, and then he thinks he's going to get beat up. And then it goes into this completely other world where he has no idea what this guy can do to him. And I think whatever gratification Ezekiel gets from torturing and terrorizing people, there's also that his skill is creating a situation where you have no idea what's going to happen. And that creates a lot of fear and that's what gets people to bend to his will. So yeah, there's always a stunt coordinator and protective clothing for all of that stuff, but yeah, we just choreographed it in a really fun way and then let Pablo's energy kind of drive the scene forward.
And these sort of tone shifts that happened in this scene feel like they kind of happened throughout the film. There's a lot of different emotional vibes and funny moments, serious moments, scary moments. As an actor, how do you have a lighthouse or a guiding star of what tone you need to communicate in each scene versus the movie as a whole?
OSMENT: That's the director's responsibility. And we were lucky to have Eddie [Edward James Olmos] because in conversations we had before we started shooting and on set and at lunch, he really was so skilled at explaining to us his vision, the things he was going to do in the editing and post-production that would help us stitch all of these different tones together. With the funny stuff, it is, as it is a lot of the time with comedy, for the characters, a lot of these scenes there's nothing funny about it at all. And you get more comedy by how true to life you're playing these scenes. My character had the easiest sort of window into it because he has these really gritty and realistic experiences, but also with the talk show montage with Bryan [Safi] and Erin [Gibson] and all that stuff, he definitely gets caught up in the fantasy of the greed and the exploitation. And in a way, that really gave me a good feeling about what Eddie was going for.
I know that this film is based on a true story, and I know that David and Edward play real characters or have real counterparts. Is your character based on a real human being that you researched or met?
OSMENT: No, I don't think there's a real person that Alex represents, but it's sort of one of those people that — Obviously, there were a lot of corporate henchmen that [oil companies] use to ingratiate themselves with the people whose land they're poisoning. But I think Alex, like Ezekiel, was invented to sort of pull all those elements together and make it easier to put into a two-hour film.
Was there any kind of research you did into the world of corporate henchmen, and advertising, and all these kinds of corporate shenanigans?
OSMENT: Oh, sure. I mean, I love reading about this stuff, and it seems to be a common interest for people as a whole right now just being in the Trump era. And this is one of those things going back to Dr. Strangelove where these sort of comedic and almost farcical elements kind of have to be in the movie because if you did it just straight on realism, it would be too depressing to watch the movie. [laughter] Because the reality of it is so grim. But you see it in shows like Succession and things like that. Our lives are being dominated by these sort of wheeling-dealing grifters right now. So there were so many real-life characters, definitely in the Trump administration, to sort of pull things from. And with this specific case, it's about how just farmers and people in these agricultural regions have been exploited so badly in the past couple of decades. But for me, I think my research was finding that difference between the people who are kind of pure evil in that corporate structure, and then people who are just kind of pathetic grifters who get in way over their heads. And I think that's more the variety that Alex is.
You've got three pretty beautiful pieces of facial hair in this film. You've got your beard going on, we've got Edward James Olmos', we've got David's. And I'm just curious, what's your beard power ranking? One, two, three, what do we got?
OSMENT: Oh my God. I think it's definitely Eddie at the top, and then David, and then I'm sort of newer to the beard scene, sort of coming up in the world trying to establish myself. [laughter] My 2017 beard would definitely be higher up on the rankings, but this one was a little bit more in control, so. [laughter]
It's funny to hear you say that. I talked to David earlier this week and I asked him the same question. He put your beard at the top —
OSMENT: Oh, nice. [laughter]
— and he put his own beard at the bottom. So all of you have a very selfless sort of team player mentality, it would seem.
OSMENT: That's why we worked so well together. That's the beard union. [laughter]
We're kind of in an era of endless reboots, and remakes, and sequels. I don't necessarily think it's a good idea, but if someone were to approach you with a Sixth Sense reboot or remake, how would you imagine where Cole is right now? What do you think that story could even look like?
OSMENT: Oh, man. I think if I remember correctly, there was, and understandably, a lot of interest in doing a sequel, and Night [writer/director M. Night Shyamalan], very wisely I think, put his foot down and said he would never do that. I mean, I think this was right as the film came out that he was putting a stop to that, which I think was cool. We had the 20th-anniversary last fall and we screened it at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and me and Night did a Q&A afterwards. And I hadn't seen it in a really long time, and it's just such a perfectly designed movie. I haven't even thought about where that character might be. I think the hopeful part at the end is that I hope that his life wouldn't become too fantastical or anything, but that he felt a responsibility to help people. That was his great skill, is helping people find some closure. So if that's what he did for the rest of his life, I think that would be kind of perfect.
When you watch these movies you made as a kid, does it kind of take you back to your childhood experiences making them? Or do you more watch them just as, "How does this film work as a film?"
OSMENT: I guess it's a little of both because I have such strong memories of... I mean, it's such an intense experience doing a film like that, or making a film at all. When you're that age, it's the craziest thing you've ever done and you're doing all these things often for the first time. But now that I'm watching and how young I seem to myself, it's weird reconciling my very clear memories of doing that on the set and then how young I look to myself now. So it's wild, and it's just wild doing the same job going back almost 30 years now.
Man. 30 years of experience. Have you ever thought of, or had a desire to take this experience and apply it to the craft of directing?
OSMENT: Oh, definitely. I'm definitely interested in doing that. And that was something I was kind of gearing up trying to get going before the pandemic, but now, getting new projects made has a whole other set of challenges for the next year or so. So hopefully I can get back on that track when the world kind of calms down.
Moving back to The Devil Has a Name, you talked about the prescience of the film, especially as it relates to who's currently in the White House. What do you think, ultimately, this film says about the future of America?
OSMENT: I think it represents how hard everyday people have to fight against these corporate colossuses to just get their basic fair share and just to get basic human rights, like not having poisoned soil and water and poisoned air. I mean, this fall in Los Angeles, the air has just been choked with smoke all day, every day. And it's just there's this oppressive feeling of the walls closing in on all this. But I think the film is hopeful because it shows that when the right people keep at it, for now, there is the possibility to get justice in the courts and in the court of public opinion. So I don't think we're sugarcoating how difficult it's going to be, and how powerful the forces arrayed against us are, but that doesn't mean we can't try.
The Devil Has a Name is now playing in select theaters and is available on demand and digital.