Teddy Riley '09 and Aaron Buchsbaum '08 are a Los Angeles–born and–raised comedy writing duo who met and honed their craft together at USC. They co-wrote the animated sports comedy GOAT, about a small goat with big dreams who overcomes the odds to compete with the pros — a film that’s grossed roughly $130 million worldwide so far following its early 2026 theatrical run.  In addition to their feature work, Riley and Buchsbaum co-created and executive produced the Amazon Prime Video animated comedy Fairfax, a satirical comedy about middle school friends chasing clout on L.A.’s iconic Fairfax Avenue. They’re currently in post-production on the live-action movie El Tigre starring Tom Segura, and developing new projects with Netflix and New Line Cinema, continuing their focus on bold, character-driven laughs across mediums.

What influenced you to pursue filmmaking as a career, considering you received your undergraduate degree in business at USC Marshall?

Aaron: Well, I think… We both grew up in Los Angeles, so filmmaking was always kind of in the air for us. And we happened to grow up right when peak 90s comedy was firing on all cylinders, hitting us at exactly the age when it all just landed. So when we went to college, our very responsible parents were like “look, we’ll put you through school, you go get your business degrees, keep loving film, keep pursuing it however you want, but have something to fall back on.” It came from a really practical place; realistically, not everyone makes it in the film industry, and you need something to support yourself if you don’t. And honestly, in a funny way, having a business degree has been incredibly useful throughout our careers. It gives us a clearer sense of how to navigate so much of the work. Writing is the best part of our job… but it’s, at most, 50% of it.

Teddy: When we actually get to write, it’s great, but you’re still navigating the film industry, which is… yeah, obviously a tricky one right now. And for me, like Aaron said, we grew up in the mid‑90s. I remember my dad taking me to see Ace Ventura in the theater and just thinking this what I want to do. I was literally rolling laughing in the aisles, and I walked out of that movie knowing I wanted to make people laugh. I think that’s a big part of why we became writing partners; we were both obsessed with the same stuff. Jim Carrey movies, Saturday Night Live in the 90s, all the Adam Sandler and Chris Farley movies. And then on the other side, the big blockbuster stuff: Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, etc. Those influences stuck with us into adulthood and really shaped the kind of writing and the kind of movies we wanted to make.

We didn’t go into college telling ourselves, “We’re here to become writers.” It was more of a shared discovery. We came in thinking, okay, we want to work in the movie business in some capacity. Our first jobs were interning at agencies and production companies; we were open to a lot of different paths. But in becoming friends, we found writing really organically. We fell in love with it in college, kept at it after graduation, and eventually became professional writers in this very unplanned, organic way. It wasn’t nearly as calculated as some people’s paths, and honestly, that’s part of what made it fun.

How did you both get involved at SCA as a minor? Tell us about how you two met!

Teddy: We both had, like Aaron said, very practical parents who weren’t in the business, so we applied to Marshall, got in as business majors, and did the responsible thing. But we were both really interested in filmmaking and the movie business, so we chose cinema minors, and honestly, those were the classes we were excited about, way more than the actual major requirements. 

Aaron: I think the best class memories I have from SC are almost all from my film courses. and the business classes I remember fondly are the ones where Teddy and I could sneak in writing or focus on film while technically “learning business.” The Drew Casper class [CTCS 190] all the freshmen took was amazing, and we both did that Leonard Maltin Thursday‑night class [CTCS 466] everyone wanted. As 18 or 19 year‑olds, getting to see early cuts of movies and hear directly from the filmmakers was incredible. It really inspired us and made us feel like, wow, these people went to our school and did this, maybe we could too one day. As for how we met, we both joined the fraternity AEPI.

Teddy: Aaron’s a year ahead of me, and he ended up being my big bro in the fraternity, which kicked off a lifelong friendship. And really, just through hanging out, we kind of… found our way into writing. We were both interning over the summers, reading scripts, doing coverage, all that stuff. At some point, I don’t even remember exactly how, we just said, we should try writing a movie together. It sounded fun. We didn’t know anything about screenwriting. Maybe we skimmed Save the Cat or looked up a few random things online, but mostly we just started writing. And, like Aaron mentioned, we wrote the whole thing in the back of this three‑hour operations management class we shared. We’d literally pass the laptop back and forth. By the end of the semester, we had a full screenplay. We were like “that was really fun, let’s keep going”. And it just snowballed from there.

Was attending USC and SCA always the goal?

Aaron: My path to SC was honestly more of a surprise. I was looking at other schools, like Wisconsin and Michigan, and I remember on the flight to Wisconsin there was this insane layover on a tiny plane with extreme turbulence. And I had this very quick moment of, “You know what… I think I might go to USC.” I think part of me really wanted to get out of Los Angeles, but something in my gut kept saying SC would be good for me. And it ended up being true. My dad loved USC and always wanted me to go there, so it was probably less of a surprise to him than it was to me. But looking back, SC ended up being responsible for a lot of the best things in my life; my wife went to SC, Teddy went to SC. So many important parts of my life trace back to that decision.

Teddy: I also grew up in Los Angeles, and I had that classic teenage feeling of wanting to get out of my hometown. But once the applications and acceptances came in, USC was by far the best option. My mom had gone to USC too, so it felt like "alright, this will be great". And without really calculating it, I think both of us were just naturally drawn to a big campus with a really enthusiastic fan base: football games, all the teams, all the energy. The fraternity life obviously suited us really well too.

Aaron: It ended up being, honestly, the exact right place for me. Growing up in L.A., I’m from Santa Monica and Teddy’s from the Valley, I never really went downtown. For the first 16 or 17 years of my life, I barely ventured there. Other than maybe going to a Lakers game, there just wasn’t much of a reason. So SC was a completely new world to me. When I went there, it felt like I might as well have been going hundreds of miles away. It still felt like a new experience; it didn’t feel like I was just staying in my hometown.

Teddy: Once I was in, it was almost immediate like, oh my god, I have to minor in film. The legacy of the film school – Lucas, Spielberg, all of these gigantic names who have been part of that place. It was just so exciting to even think about taking film classes, let alone wanting to be part of that legacy. After we graduated, I debated going to Stark for my MFA, but it just didn’t work out that way.

Were there any classes, professors, or experiences that were particularly impactful?

Aaron: I mean, CTCS 466 alone, there’s just something magical about cinema that anyone who goes into film feels. Getting to see movies before they came out and talk to the people who made them was incredible. I also took a production class that focused on a single film released that year, and every week someone new from that film would come in. My film was Juno. So it was Jason Reitman, Diablo Cody, all the key people behind it, and it was such a huge movie at that moment. Getting to meet everyone who was part of that process was unbelievably cool. There’s this intangible, magical energy around cinema that really radiates on campus, and it makes you feel like this is just too cool not to be a part of.

Teddy: I think the Maltin class [CTCS 466] was epic. The Drew Casper class is the one that really sticks with me too, because that was when I went from just being a fan of movies to actually starting to understand them on a deeper level. I still remember a couple of papers I wrote, and writing about films. Doing that kind of analysis helped me discover what I liked about movies in the first place. I loved that I could choose which films to write about. There was one paper on color theory, and I chose The Royal Tenenbaums because I loved it. It felt like heaven. I have to admit, the film classes were way better than accounting.

As writers, what stories are you drawn to and how does your creative process drive the narrative forward?

Teddy: That’s a great question. I think we’re generally drawn to comedically fish-out-of-water stories. GOAT is an underdog story, and we’ve always loved underdog stories, unlikely heroes who are suddenly thrust into incredible situations. Without really thinking about it, Aaron and I also tend to gravitate toward worldbuilding. Whether it’s an action-comedy spy world or an animals-playing-basketball world, those kinds of heightened, imaginative spaces are just things we’re naturally drawn to.

Aaron: Yeah, I think you nailed it with the idea of the unlikely hero. When we look at a lot of our projects, especially early in our career, it’s usually a very average person being thrust into an extraordinary situation. That kind of story feels universal in a way that people can immediately relate to and wrap their heads around. In terms of what really motivates and drives us, it’s pretty simple: when we’re making each other laugh, we know we’re onto something. When we’re cracking up together, it feels like a good sign that it might make someone else laugh too.

Teddy: I think we love writing characters you want to root for. It sounds simple, but we really care about getting behind our protagonists. Genre-wise, we gravitate toward comedy as a baseline, especially action comedies. We grew up loving movies like Midnight Run and Rush Hour. We’re blockbuster kids. We come from that era of big, broad, four-quadrant movies that everyone could enjoy, and we still believe there’s so much fun to be had in that space. Broad can be good. Big, broad fun is awesome. Animation, in particular, has become a really exciting creative space for us. We grew up obsessed with animated movies, especially that incredible Disney run, and animation gives us the freedom to build huge worlds and tell stories that are too big, outlandish, or expensive for live action. Early in our careers, we’d get notes like, “This is too expensive, you’re blowing up too many helicopters.” In animation, the note is more like, “Go for it.” That freedom makes it a really fun world for us to operate in.

Aaron: A lot of kids probably come into film school with this lofty expectation to be an auteur, to follow the Sundance route. Aaron and I never really saw ourselves that way. We loved big commercial movies, the kind we went to with our families. There’s a natural push and pull as a young filmmaker: you feel pressure to make deeply personal, intimate films with a very specific auteur sensibility. Those movies are amazing, we love watching them, but they weren’t necessarily the movies we wanted to make. I always encourage up-and-coming filmmakers to free themselves from those expectations. There are so many directors we admire, like the late Rob Reiner, who worked across genres, like you wouldn’t necessarily guess that the same person who made Spinal Tap also made A Few Good Men. That versatility is inspiring, and I’d love to see more of it. For us, because filmmaking was never our sole focus in school, it allowed us to just have fun. We made each other laugh, and by not placing these lofty expectations over ourselves, we could focus on what felt most authentic to us.

Congratulations on the upcoming premiere of GOAT! The film looks wonderful. You’ve both written for animated and live action projects. Are there any similarities or differences?

Aaron: I’d say animation is a more broken-down, collaborative process. There are a lot of steps and a lot of back-and-forth with artists. There’s nothing cooler than putting an idea into a script, seeing an artist take it and elevate it with their own ideas, and then building on that together. It’s a very fluid, tandem process. Live-action is different; you write the script in your own space, hand it off, get notes, revise, and eventually the crew shoots the movie. You hope what they shoot works, and if it doesn’t, you fix it in re-shoots. It’s a lot less iterative than animation.

Teddy: I mean, not to use a sports analogy, but animation really is a team sport. In live action, it becomes a team effort during production, but in animation, the development process itself is collaborative. That teamwork, combined with the time it takes, really makes animated movies unique; both in how they’re made and in the final product. You have more time to put something up, see what’s working, what’s not, and improve it, with lots of people contributing different ideas and perspectives to make the movie better. In live action, writing often feels more like a relay race: we write the script, hand it to the director, who hands it to the editor, and so on. Fairfax really reinforced for us that animation is a true team sport from start to finish.

Aaron: Yeah, it’s not surprising to us that animated movies often feel higher in quality than some live-action films. The design process in animation just allows for course correction much more easily than in live action.

 

Share with us more about GOAT. The synopsis, how the project came to be, the major obstacles you faced during the writing process and production. 

Aaron: GOAT came together in a really interesting way. We first met with Sony in 2018. They had a kernel of an idea: a goat playing basketball, playing on the acronym, but it wasn’t a full pitch. We ended up having a natural conversation about basketball, the global impact of sports, and the world-building potential of the story. They hired us, and we spent months developing the first draft of the script. In animation, it’s common to write, develop, rewrite, and develop again, and that’s exactly what happened. Before the second draft, our TV show Fairfax got picked up by Amazon for two seasons, so we stepped away to make that. Once Fairfax was wrapping, Sony reached out to have us return to GOAT while it was still in script development. Teddy was about to have a baby, so we dove in immediately. Because we already knew the project inside and out, we were confident about the direction, and in six weeks we wrote the draft that got the movie greenlit. From there, the movie went into production, which in animation takes years. We worked closely with the artists, directors, and producers, constantly tweaking and adjusting. Animatics would be made, we’d watch them, see what worked and what didn’t, and go back to refine. Animation is the best because it’s so collaborative, and being part of that process was incredible.

Teddy: The director, Tyree Dillihay, was on the project from the very beginning, and we immediately had a great rapport and a shared vision. From the start, it was loosely based on source material that gave us a jumping-off point: a basketball movie set in an animal world. Pretty early on, we knew we wanted it to be an underdog story, with themes of chasing your dreams, finding yourself, and proving people wrong. It’s about a small goat named Will who’s obsessed with basketball, called Roarball in this world, where the pros are all huge animals like rhinos and giraffes. The common sentiment is that “smalls can’t ball,” and Will is determined to prove otherwise. Those core ideas were in the DNA of the movie from the beginning. We also leaned into fun, classic sports-movie elements: the comedic ensemble of a team, the behind-the-scenes world of professional sports, thanks in part to Steph Curry and his company Unanimous being on board. Scenes on the team plane, at hotels, and other behind-the-scenes moments came from those conversations. As Aaron said, it’s a deeply collaborative process with so many people contributing great ideas.

Aaron: We had a generally shared vision, and one of the coolest things about working with Sony was that at no point did we approach the movie thinking “we're writing a kids’ movie”. Tonally, we leaned into edgier references; movies like White Men Can’t Jump or Major League were touchstones. The approach was always, push the boundaries, see what works, and we could pull back if needed. We never wrote with the idea that this had to be “for kids.”

Teddy: It was really about making a movie that everyone could love and connect with, writing a sports movie we ourselves would want to see in theaters. That’s always been our approach: create the kind of movie we would be excited to watch. We had a ton of fun, and the studio was incredibly encouraging. There’s a great blend of character-driven comedy, physical humor, and visual storytelling, and collaborating with the production designers and director helped shape the world – from the stadiums to how we could maximize the medium for the story we wanted to tell.

Aaron: There’s nothing cooler than seeing someone bring your words to life while you’re writing. For GOAT, the courts themselves became living, dynamic components of each game: full of obstacles that elevated the sport beyond normal basketball. Artists suggested ideas like vines hanging from the ceiling, stalactites, or an ice court that breaks mid-game, which then influenced how the characters played. The visuals and storytelling informed each other in a really collaborative, synergistic way; a process that’s true for most animated movies, but it was especially exciting here.

Teddy: Like Aaron said, seeing the drawings and having ideas evolve from them was incredible. Sometimes a small moment in the script would grow into a full set piece because the visuals were so compelling. Sports movies are such an amazing genre, with a long history. While prepping, we watched so many classics: White Men Can’t Jump, Major League, Breaking Away, and felt like there hadn’t been a really big, fun sports movie in a while. This might even be one of the first major animated sports movies.

Aaron: There’s something about sports movies where the outcome, who wins and loses, is pretty predictable. As a writer, that pushes you to focus on internal nuances and character-driven choices to make the story feel fresh. A lot of the fun for us was building the characters, especially the dynamic between Will and Jett, the two main characters, and finding ways for their relationship to feel unique while also shaping the external story.

Teddy: That’s one of the exciting parts of writing a sports movie. There are certain classic beats you just have to hit – every good sports movie needs a training montage – but we also challenged ourselves to do things that hadn’t been done before. Ideas like the courts coming alive were a big part of that, finding ways to add something fresh to the genre and give audiences something they hadn’t seen before.

What advice would you give young writers looking to get their first project or pilot sold?

Aaron: I think exposing your work to as many people as possible is really important, and that’s something Teddy and I did well. We shared our work with anyone willing to read it, listened to their notes, addressed them, and kept sharing it again and again.

Teddy: The only reason we became professional writers is because we shared our work, handed it to someone and asked, “Is this any good?” They liked it and passed it along, and that’s how things started. You never know who will see your work, so it’s important to share it liberally. There’s also an element of paying your dues. We were both assistants for a while, earning trust at companies, and once we had that trust, we could ask people to read our work, essentially kickstarting our careers. Exposure to the industry and building relationships is invaluable. Many of the people now becoming executives and running companies are folks we grew up with in the entertainment industry. Those early mailroom and assistant jobs matter because that’s how you meet people who will eventually run Hollywood. When they know and trust you, it’s much easier to get your work seen than relying on a blind read.

From a selling standpoint, it’s really hard to predict what buyers will go for these days, and chasing trends usually means you’re already too late. We’ve found the most success when we write something that genuinely excites us, something that makes both of us laugh and that we feel confident in. You never know what will hit: a “sure thing” might get passed on, while something obscure or niche could be exactly what a buyer is looking for. I’d encourage any writer to feel confident in what they want to write. Even if it’s a big, broad, commercial idea, it needs authenticity; people should be able to feel that it’s yours. One of the first questions we’re always asked is, “Why are YOU the ones to write this?” You don’t always need an elaborate answer, but there does need to be one.

What’s up next for you? Any new developments or projects in the works?

Aaron: We’re currently writing a couple of movies. One for Netflix and one for New Line, both live-action: an action-comedy and a high school comedy. There’s this sense that comedy is making a comeback, especially R-rated comedy, and the teams we’re working with are true champions of the genre, really wanting to put comedy front and center. We’re excited to be collaborating with them. Live action is where we cut our teeth, and we love it, but we’re by no means moving away from animation. We love that process and fully intend to keep doing it.

Story by Emily Tutnick