How to Get Cast on ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’

Like the novels, the series centers on Percy (Walker Scobell, “The Adam Project”), who discovers at 12 that he’s not only a demigod but also the son of Poseidon. When he finds out his place in the Greek pantheon has put him in the line of fire, he ventures to Camp Half-Blood, a refuge and training ground for demigods on Long Island. There, he makes friends with Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries, “Something From Tiffany’s”), the daughter of Athena, and a satyr named Grover Underwood (Aryan Simhadri, “Cheaper by the Dozen”).

As Percy struggles to grasp the magnitude of his powers, Zeus (Lance Reddick, Season 1; Courtney B. Vance, Season 2) accuses the tween of stealing his master lightning bolt, the god’s deadliest weapon; the development sends Olympus into upheaval. Together with his newfound companions, Percy must clear his name and prevent an all-out war among the Greek gods.

Season 2—based on “The Sea of Monsters,” the second book of Riordan’s series—saw the titular hero and his friends return to Camp Half-Blood, where the poisoning of Thalia’s (Tamara Smart, “Artemis Fowl”) pine tree has weakened the camp’s protective border and left it vulnerable to monster attacks. Percy and his crew must find the Golden Fleece so its healing properties can restore the refuge to safety.

Season 3 will draw its plot from Riordan’s third book, “The Titan’s Curse,” which follows Percy and friends as they aid siblings Bianca (Olive Abercrombie, “Mayfair Witches”) and Nico di Angelo (Levi Chrisopulos, “FBI”) in their escape from Westover Hall boarding school, only to have things turn dangerous in the aftermath.

Seasons 1 and 2 featured:

• Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson
• Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth Chase
• Aryan Simhadri as Grover Underwood
• Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan
• Timm Sharp as Gabe Ugliano
• Azriel Dalman as Young Percy Jackson
• Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus
• Adam Copeland as Ares
• Threnody Tsai as Sarah
• Andrew Alvarez as Chris
• Lance Reddick as Zeus
• Toby Stephens as Poseidon
• Timothy Omundson as Hephaestus
• Jay Duplass as Hades
• Jason Gray-Stanford as Maron
• Glynn Turman as Chiron
• Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue
• Jelena Milinkovic as Nereid
• Jessica Parker Kennedy as Medusa
• Megan Mullally as Alecto
• Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hermes
• Virginia Kull as Sally Jackson
• Olivea Morton as Nancy Bobofit
• Manoj Sood as the Principal
• Jennifer Shirley as the Oracle
• Tamara Smart as Thalia Grace
• Timothy Simons as Tantalus
• Andra Day as Athena
• Daniel Diemer as Tyson
• Courtney B. Vance as Zeus

Vance took over as Zeus in Season 2, replacing Reddick, who passed away in 2023. “There are few moments in an actor’s career when you can honestly say that you’re about to board a series that has such a devoted fan base filled with characters beloved around the world and is based on a wildly successful book series,” Vance told Variety. “I know that stepping into this role of Zeus will be a memorable experience, and I’ll be giving my brother Lance Reddick, who left us way too soon, a heavenly hug.”

Season 3 welcomes Abercrombie as Bianca Di Angelo and newcomer Chrisopulos as her little brother, Nico—two characters critical to the series’ storyline. Dafne Keen (“His Dark Materials”) and Saara Chaudry (“The Muppets Mayhem”) will also join the series in recurring roles, playing Artemis and Zoë Nightshade, respectively. Season 3 will also see major names take on big roles in the “Percy Jackson” universe, including Ming-Na Wen as Hera, Kate McKinnon as Aphrodite, Jennifer Beals as Demeter, and Hubert Smielecki as Apollo.

Denise Chamian (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “Elvis”) and Jordana Sapiurka (“The Old Man,” “Strange Angel”) put together the ensemble of the Disney+ adaptation. 

The Disney+ series kicked off with a rare open casting call, during which time Riordan and the casting team saw “thousands and thousands” of great tapes, the author told BuzzFeed. He didn’t put any restrictions or guidelines on the type of actor—he simply wanted young actors who could embody his characters and develop a natural, believable chemistry.

“The only real thing I was interested in was: Can we find actors who embody the character, the personality, the energy of the young heroes that they’re playing? Where’s the voice? Where’s the humor? Where’s the chemistry?” Riordan said. “So, that was the challenge. And it became pretty clear when we were watching Walker, Aryan, and Leah do their auditions, reading the actual lines from the scripts, that they had exactly that. They embodied the way I imagine these characters sounding and acting in my head when I write the ‘Percy Jackson’ books.”

Of course, it helped that Scobell was already hooked on the book series. “He’s a superfan,” Riordan shared. “One of the first questions his dad asked him when he got into acting apparently was, ‘What do you want to do? Who do you want to be?’ And the first thing he said was, ‘I want to be Percy Jackson.’ And that never wavered. So, he came into it with that kind of energy and commitment.”

It was a similar love for the books that helped the team cast some big-name stars. “People often ask me if I ‘dream cast’ my own books, and no, I never do. I just went into the process looking at the tapes that came in, seeing the way that the actors read their lines,” Riordan explained. “We were just very fortunate that a lot of the actors who came to this project came to it for sort of the same reason Walker did: That they loved the books and had a personal connection. Many of our adult actors have children who have read the books. Their children were the ones who were saying, ‘Oh, yes, you have to do this.’ So there’s a real personal commitment to it that they want to do a good job not only because they’re professionals, but because they love the material and they want to do right by their own families.”

“Percy Jackson” hasn’t gotten the green light for Season 4 yet, but the show’s plan has always been to adapt one book per season, with five titles total. (“The Battle of the Labyrinth” and “The Last Olympian” would be next.) 

Here’s some advice from a few of the series’ stars: 

Be open to anything. Jay Duplass, who plays Hades, began his career as a director. But when he added acting to his repertoire, he developed a newfound appreciation of the craft. 

“It was basically, like, learning how to be totally vulnerable and divulge all of our hangups and let it rip,” he told IndieWire. “I took it as a director because I was tired of being scared of actors, and I noticed that all actors and directors were scared of each other. And I didn’t want that; I wanted to feel them and understand them and know how to talk to them and support them,” he said. “I’ve definitely relied on that experience as an actor—just letting things happen to me and allowing anything and being open to anything.” 

Ignore the naysayers. Mullally, who plays Alecto, credits her long career in comedy to never giving up on her dreams. “Don’t listen to the negative belief systems that some people have,” she told us. “You have to develop your skills and do your side of it, but as long as you’re passionate about it and you hang in there, I truly believe there is room for everybody.” 

March to the beat to your own drum. “There are people you can try and model yourself after, but you can’t have anybody else’s career,” Mantzoukas (Dionysus) told Vulture. “You can only have yours, and you can try and figure it out as best you can. That is a lot of what this career is. I can’t predict or know what is going to come next or how it’s going to unfold. I have to keep moving what I have right now down the field.” 

Trust the process. Miranda, who plays Hermes, told us that you must believe everything will unfold as it’s meant to. “I wish I could go back and [tell myself], ‘It’s gonna be OK. Keep working. Enough with the morbid fantasies. You’re gonna be all right. Life is longer than you think it is.’ ”