Jeff Cohen

Cohen & Gardner

By VARIETY STAFF

Jeff Cohen faded from film screens after his turn as Chunk in Richard Donner's 1985 cult classic "The Goonies." Being a child actor, however, has helped him make a far bigger impact cutting deals for the likes of Wong Kar Wai and Digital Domain as a founding partner in Cohen & Gardner.

"I try very hard to empathize with my clients and make sure that my aim going into a deal matches up 100% with what the client really wants across the board -- not just monetarily but creatively as well," Cohen says.

He transitioned in his late teens from acting to working as a P.A. for Donner and later on jobs at Warners while he went to UC Berkeley and law school at UCLA. He and Jonathan Gardner founded their own firm in 2002 and hit a high point last year by representing the directors of both the opening film of the Cannes Film Festival and the closing film of Critics' Week.

RICHARD DONNER: "His acting had an incredible sense of genuineness, of reality. He was Jeff -- he drew from himself, and I think that's who he is now. He's honest and straight. I think that was in his acting and now in his law practice."