HOGGIN' THE SCREEN By JOSLYN YANG  Email  Archives  Print  Reprint September 20, 2003 -- Lions are easy, says Haley Joel Osment. Acting with pigs is hard. "Pigs pretty much have their own agenda," the 15-year-old actor explained the other day in New York. "They just don't want to cooperate as much as dogs or even lions, I guess." Osment has more than a "Sixth Sense" about such things. In his newest film, "Secondhand Lions," he plays Walter, a timid 14-year-old who's sent to spend the summer at his uncles' farm. In time, Walter not only bonds with his eccentric uncles (played by Robert Duvall and Michael Caine) but with a group of animals including two dogs, a pig and an ailing lion named Jasmine. The other day, looking shy but happy, the young Oscar-nominee talked about what it was like to work with his co-stars - the ones with two legs and those with four. He really loved the lions - three of whom took turns playing Jasmine. The lions were around the set really frequently," he says, "but the producers weren't too excited about me jumping in the cage as much as I wanted to." Instead, he says, he had fun watching the lions wrestle with their trainers. Those four Yorkshire pigs, he says, were another story. Whenever one of them didn't lie down or run on command, the animal trainer brought in another. "The pigs aren't like dogs that want to impress you," Osment concludes. "They are interesting to watch, but they won't go fetch for you." Living in Los Angeles and Alabama with his parents and younger sister, Osment has had some interesting pets: two leopard geckos, a couple of aquatic frogs, a dog named Suki and a hamster. When he's not making a film, he goes to school and hangs out with friends. And he just got his driver's permit. "It's important to stay grounded in this business," says Osment, whose father, Eugene, is an actor, too. "It helps you concentrate more on the acting and not get carried away." Not even by a lion.