Emily Osment
Emily Osment is an actor, born 1992.
The Disney Channel sidekick is a job with a short shelf life. Emily Osment has now spent longer working as an adult sitcom actress than she ever did as Lilly Truscott, which is the rarer half of that career and the half nobody predicted.
She was in the business well before Hannah Montana. Born in Los Angeles in 1992, she was on set as a child, played Gerti Giggles in Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, and did voice work, in Lilo & Stitch 2 and later Kick Buttowski, that most viewers never connected to her face. Hannah Montana ran from 2006 to 2011 and produced a feature film in 2009. Lilly was written to react, and reacting on cue is a technical skill that transfers.
It transferred. Young & Hungry gave her a lead, Gabi Diamond, and the comic rhythm of a whole show to carry. Mom and The Kominsky Method put her in rooms full of much older professionals. Then Young Sheldon handed her Mandy McAllister and the character was popular enough to take the title of her own series in Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage, which is an unusual promotion: recurring guest to name in the title, on network television, two decades after Spy Kids.
The dramatic swings are the least remembered part of the record. Cyberbully was a television film about online abuse aimed squarely at the audience she already had. Stolen Baby was true crime. Neither reinvented her and neither embarrassed her. She writes and records music as well, loudly during the Disney years and quietly since.
Movies (15)
- Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special (2026)
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
- Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
- Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (2005)
- Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
- Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva la Fiesta! (2012)
- Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (2011)
- Surviving Sid (2008)
- The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It (2007)
- Dadnapped (2009)
- Stolen Baby: The Murder of Heidi Broussard (2023)
- Cyberbully (2011)
- Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana (2009)
- Christmas Wonderland (2018)
- No Way Jose (2015)
TV (12)
Where to start with Emily Osment
Most people arrive here from Hannah Montana, and that is the wrong door. The best single showcase is Young & Hungry, where she is the lead, sets the comic tempo for an entire cast, and is nobody's sidekick. Follow it with Young Sheldon and its spin-off Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage, which together are the most adult work she has done and the clearest picture of her current range.
For the childhood canon, Hannah Montana is unavoidable and holds up better than its reputation, largely on the strength of its supporting cast, and Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams is the more enjoyable of the two Spy Kids films. Cyberbully is the earnest one, aged badly in its specifics and played without condescension. Mom and The Kominsky Method are small parts in much better-written shows.