Drew Goddard

From the Los Alamos Monitor, Feb. 2, 2004, "Los Alamos to Hollywood: Goddard finds success as television writer for popular series," written by Lorie Love: When Drew Goddard was a student at Los Alamos High School, he had a passion for reading and a talent for writing. But when he thought about his future career, he never dreamed he’d get to do either of those for a living.

In fact, like many Los Alamos residents, he figured he’d grow up, go to college and get a job at the National Laboratory.

But big dreams - not to mention a whole lot of determination - took him to Hollywood, where he is enjoying a successful career as a television screenwriter.

For the past four years, Goddard, 28, has called Los Angeles home. He has worked on a number of productions, and in the past two years, has been a staff writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the show’s sequel, Angel. His episodes have won a slew of awards, including the coveted Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation/Short Form for an episode of Buffy that aired Nov. 12, 2002.

Goddard said he is still in awe of his "luck."

"Growing up in Los Alamos, you don’t know that you can do something like work in Hollywood," Goddard said. "I knew I loved reading and writing, and I knew I loved movies, but I don’t think I realized that people wrote them. When I started looking at jobs, I realized that would be fun."

There was only one problem. Goddard said he didn’t know how to get a job as a television writer. In fact, he didn’t know anyone who did it.

Goddard attended the University of Colorado after graduating from Los Alamos High School in 1993. He studied English literature and film production.

One summer during college, Goddard saw an opportunity to get his foot in the door when the College of Santa Fe produced a movie of the week called Scattering Dad, starring Olympia Dukakis. After much persistence, he was accepted as a volunteer production assistant on the set. Little did he know that someday his connection with that movie would change his life.

"I got coffee and ran errands," Goddard said. "I worked 16 hours a day. It was terrible, and I couldn’t have loved it more."

While in college, Goddard worked summer jobs in Los Alamos, and saved a couple thousand dollars. Then one day, on a wing and a prayer, he got in his car and drove to Los Angeles. He got an apartment and started looking for jobs. He said he "benefited from not knowing any better and just moved to Hollywood."

"I called the people that I knew (from working on the movie of the week in Santa Fe), and they had an opening for a production assistant," Goddard said.

He soon began working as a writer’s assistant for David E. Kelley, the producer of Ally McBeal, The Practice and several other shows. Goddard said he worked on the short-lived series Kelley series, Snoops.

"For the first couple of years, every show I worked on got canceled in a very short time," he said. "I was like bad luck. But I learned a lot from the shows that got canceled. I learned what not to do."

While working for David E. Kelley, Goddard began working on his own scripts for shows he liked. He said he gave his scripts to people at Kelley’s company, and they passed them around to their friends.

One of his scripts ended up in the hands of the Buffy staff.

"When they called and said they wanted to hire me, it was one of the best days of my life," Goddard said. "It’s hard enough to get a job on any show, but Buffy happened to be my favorite show of all time."

Goddard wrote several episodes for Buffy, the first of which aired Oct. 22, 2002. It was titled "Selfless" and was directed by David Solomon. He also wrote "Conversations with Dead People" with Jane Espenson, which won the Hugo Award and the SyFy Portal Genre Award for Best Episode/ Television.

He wrote "Never Leave Me," which aired Nov. 26, 2002. The episode "Lies My Parents Told Me," which he wrote with director David Fury, was nominated for a SyFy Portal Genre Award. It aired March 25, 2003.

"Dirty Girls," which aired in April of 2003, was also written by the Los Alamos native.

In the midst of all his success, Goddard said he was still in shock.

"If you had told me when I was sitting in the classrooms in Los Alamos that I’d be doing this, I would have never believed it," Goddard said. "It’s pretty exciting. I get to work with some great scripts and some great people."

When Buffy ended, Goddard was invited to continue working in the sci-fi genre, as a writer for Angel, a sequel to Buffy the Vampire Slayer featuring David Boreanaz. He still can’t believe it.

"There’s no place I’d rather be," Goddard said. "I like what we get to do. I mosey in to work at about 9:30 (a.m.), talk about vampires all day, leave about 7 (p.m.)," Goddard said. "That’s what I do anyway. Now I am getting paid for it. You couldn’t find a better job."

Goddard and seven other writers work on each show. He said they convene in a room, talked about the episode, break a story and then write down every scene as a group. Each writer takes turns writing the complete episode on his own. The process usually takes about two weeks from start to finish, he said. In crunch time, however, scripts are needed in about three days.

While much of writing the shows is creativity, Goddard said research is still sometimes necessary.

"But still, it is our universe, so it’s our rules," he said.

According to Goddard, an episode takes eight days to film. As a writer, he oversees the production.

"It’s amazing to get to see your imagination come to life. Sometimes you write something really crazy, kind of as a joke, and then you see them do it," he said. "I still cannot believe I get paid to do this. I wouldn’t tell them this, but I would do it for free."

Goddard said his parents have been extremely supportive of his career, even when it didn’t seem to make any sense. He said they never questioned his decision to move to Los Angeles.

"I have the best parents in the world," Goddard said. "They were great, even though they didn’t understand. They couldn’t have offered more support. They said ’Whatever you want to do, we support you.’ I am a very fortunate son."

Although he is perfectly content with his current job, Goddard said he would someday like to write books and screenplays. As a boy who grew up loving books, he said he has always wanted to be an author. And equally important to him is encouraging Los Alamos youth to follow their own dreams.

"If I can do it, anyone can do it," Goddard said. "I would just love it if kids in Los Alamos who have dreams could look me and know that they can do it. There are other jobs out there. It’s important to me for them to know, because I didn’t know, and it’s a dream worth having."