{alltv} Osment gearing up for big tour

Playing Hannah Montana's best friend Lilly Truscott opposite Miley Cyrus on the popular Disney Channel series for the last four years has definitely worked out for Emily Osment, but she is ready to make the transition to film actress, singer-songwriter and student.

Especially since Hannah Montana's final season is set to begin airing in July.

"We really are a family," said Los Angeles-native Osment, 18, who was in Toronto recently for a showcase performance at The Spoke Club.

"I grew up with those people. It was pretty much all of my teen years. I mean, I've known Miley since she was 12 and it has been such an amazing process. It's great because we've had pretty much the same writers, same cast, same crew throughout the entire four years, so of course it'll be very bittersweet.

We know it's coming. We've done 88 or 89 episodes and we're getting to 101; it'll be a nice little end but it shall be sad."

And not everybody can make the smooth transition from child actor to adult entertainer, the 18-year-old Osment acknowledges.

"Yeah, that's very true, I'm going through that right now," she said. "I mean (Hannah Montana) is ending soon, and I'm going off to college. (It'll be) nice because I'll have this four-year period to figure out what I want to do next, which is mainly film. (That is) when I'm not doing music ..."

Before school begins in the fall, Osment — whose older brother Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) is currently attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts — will launch the first MuchMusic SodaPOP 2010 tour of Canada on Saturday. Osment is set to visit 16 cities. (See list at right.)

"Canada's great. I love Canada!" she says enthusiastically. "I keep saying I'm leaving Los Angeles and living in Toronto for the rest of my life. We just always have a really good time here. And we're always taken care of really well. I mean that just in the sense of everybody's so nice. It's just a really good town. And everybody loves music here.

"I feel like in L.A, they don't really want to work for it. They don't want to work to go to the clubs and see the bands and do the research."

Osment currently has a six-song EP, All the Right Wrongs, all of which she co-wrote from the ages of eight to 15, that came out last November.

Her full-length studio debut is to follow sometime this summer.

"My whole family is very musical," Osment said. "My mom's been playing guitar since she was 16, and my brother's been playing since he was 10. My dad plays the trumpet. And everybody sings. So I grew up in a very musical house where we had Beatles on cassette tapes ... I picked up the guitar at a very young age. But I got my first real guitar at 13."

Osment says she grew up listening to The Beatles, The Monkees and The Rolling Stones at home, before becoming a big-time Alanis Morissette fan in elementary and high school.

"This record definitely was inspired by her," said Osment of All the Right Wrongs. "I believe she's very truthful in all of her lyrics and this is more Alanis sounding. But the stuff I'm doing now is more reflective of the stuff I'm listening to now — Metric, Beirut, Radiohead, The Friendly Fires, Passion Pit, The Good, The Bad and The Queen."

"It's a more alternative sound for sure," she added. "The introduction is not going to sound anything like a followup."

She's working on the full-length CD with Matthew Baier and Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger among others.

"I love music and I do a lot of research," she said. "And when it comes to dating, I date guys who are into music. And when it comes to friends, I hang out with people who are into music. I feel like when it comes to music, there's not, 'This is my taste.' There's good music and there's bad music."

Osment has been in front of the cameras since she was five or six and has starred in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over as the character Geri Giggles.

"I was very fortunate to have pretty steady jobs," Osment said. "And it was here and there and I was still able to go to regular high school and two regular elementary schools. I did it really normally, which was great for me. (It was) the greatest decision my parents ever made, because I made so many friends and I feel like once again I'm very fortunate. I have people to fall back on who don't care what I'm doing during the day..."

Osment's dad performed in travelling musical theatre shows in college and eventually moved the family to L.A. where Haley got his big break. Both parents are orginally from Alabama.

"My brother was a really cute baby, but not anymore! I'm allowed to say it," Osment said jokingly. "He had this cute Mickey Mouse voice and he was like perfect and could memorize. When it comes to little kids and acting, all you gotta do is be cute and be able to memorize. And he could do that."

HEADLINING DATES:

Hannah Montana's Emily Osment headlines the first MuchMusic SodaPOP 2010 tour in Canada, which kicks off on Saturday in Vancouver at the Centre For The Performing Arts and wraps up

July 3 in Brockville at Riverfest.

Also on the bill is Toronto singer-songwriter Jesse LaBelle, R&B artist Danny Fernandes, dance-rock outfit The New Cities, and pop singer Alyssa Reid.

Here are all the Canadian dates:

- June 5 Vancouver,

Centre For The Performing Arts

- June 6 Vernon,

Vernon & District Performing Arts Centre

- June 7 Calgary,

Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium

- June 9 Medicine Hat,

Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre

- June 11 Edmonton,

Edmonton Events Centre

- June 12 Regina, Conexus

- June 14 Winnipeg,

Centennial Concert Hall

- June 15 Thunder Bay, Community Auditorium

- June 17 North Bay,

The Capitol Centre

- June 18 Hamilton,

Hamilton Place

- June 21 Ottawa, Centrepointe

- June 22 Kitchener,

Centre in the Square

- June 23 Toronto,

Queen Elizabeth Theatre

- June 28 Fredericton,

Playhouse Theatre

- June 29-30 Halifax, The Cohn

- July 3 Brockville, Ont., Riverfest

American

Sunday, May 30, 2010

{alltv} Osment gearing up for big tour

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