It's not the same. What gave you that idea? Also, the complex exponential is very difficult to "picture". You'd need a course on complex analysis to visualize what it's doing, but you only need basic calculus to derive this relationship.
Tailor expand e^(it), cos(t) and i sin(t). Then look at the results. Here are a couple concise proofs:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/EulerFormula.html