A Future Site ▼

Total Film: The Modern Guide to The Movies

Sixth Sense star talks Truth & Treason

Oct 9th 2008 By Sam Ashurst

You might not have seen AI star Hayley Joel Osment for a couple of years, but it looks like he’s planning a return. A return that involves him starring in World War Two drama Truth & Treason.

The now 20-year-old actor is playing Helmuth Hubener, a member of the Hitler Youth in 1941, who, along with some of his colleagues began listening to secret UK broadcasts and realised that they weren’t getting the truth about Hitler’s regime.

“It’s a true story,” he told MTV. "Some teenage members of the Hitler Youth in 1941 were listening to secret BBC broadcasts on the radio in Hamburg, and they were hearing all these things about the war that obviously the Nazi propaganda machine wasn’t relating to the public, and they ultimately rebelled and started a pamphlet campaign against Hitler.”

Berlin shoot

With a couple of scenes already in the can, director Matt Whitaker will be gearing up the shoot proper next year in Berlin.

Osment and his director have been drawing on the experiences of Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, one of Hubener’s co-conspirators, who survived to tell his tale. Hubener wasn’t so lucky – he was sentenced to die via guillotine by a “people’s court”. According to Osment, Schnibbe is a “fascinating, fascinating man. We’ve been using him as sort of our reality check.”

Osment as a Nazi? They grow up so fascist.