The actor who played Chunk in The Goonies is one of the many child stars to have gone on to live a life outside of acting.
The life of a child star after their big success can go a few different ways. Elijah Wood, Jodie Foster, Christian Bale, and a number of other child stars went on to carry over that success to their adult years in the acting industry.
Others however, end up leaving the industry behind altogether.
Whether it be the actor who played Charlie from the original Willy Wonka film, or the actor who plays Dewey on Malcolm in the Middle, it’s far more common than you think.
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The Goonies itself is full of child film stars who went on to become celebrities as adult actors, however, Jeff Cohen who played Chunk is not one of them.
For those who live under a rock and don’t know The Goonies, the 1985 film follows a group of young kids who find an ancient map and begin a search for treasure.
The film is full of recognisable faces, with Josh Brolin, Sean Astin, Ke Huy Quan, and Corey Feldman all starring in the movie as young boys.
Jeff Cohen also stars as ‘Chunk’, an aptly nicknamed child who is on the larger side of things.
His signature dance, the truffle shuffle, involved him pulling up his shirt and wiggling his belly in a bid for attention.
Despite being an iconic part of the original film, he quit acting for a very odd reason.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily Mail for the film’s 30th anniversary in 2015, he said: "There were basically about four fat kids in town, so every time there was a fat kid role you saw the same people at the audition. It was survival of the fattest."
He stated, however, that going through puberty was a ‘career ender’ as he went from a ‘chunk to a hunk’ in his own words.
This, he said, caused him to stop booking any parts as he was no longer what casting agents wanted from him.
He went on to say: “It was terrible. My first love was acting but puberty had other ideas. It was a forced retirement. I didn't give up acting. Acting gave me up.”
The former actor is now an attorney with his own practice, adding: “My clients get a kick out of the fact their lawyer is Chunk. They dig it. With my job, I’m dealing with legitimately famous people, so it’s just silly and fun.”
He stated that he is oftentimes the ‘fifth most famous person’ in any rooms he is in at work.
Amongst his many clients is actually Ke Huy Quan.
His The Goonies co-star, who also appeared in the second Indiana Jones film, similarly quit acting for years.
Quan worked as a stunt co-ordinator and fight choreographer until he appeared in Everything Everywhere All At Once, for which he received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
In a sweet twist, the actor revealed that Cohen actually did his deal for the film, saying: "Jeff Cohen, who was in The Goonies with me - he was Chunk - is all grown now and he’s an entertainment lawyer.
"When the producer of our movie was trying to make my deal, he said he never imagined that he’d have to talk to Chunk and Data for his movie."
Topics: Film, TV and Film, Celebrity, Nostalgia
Michael Slavin