Greetings from Mount Olympus, mortals! As Percy Jackson & The Olympians Season One wraps principle photography, we finally know who will play Hades’ brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, aka the Big Three. And, sorry to those demigods hoping Logan Lerman (film Percy) would play the God of the Seas. More on the roundup of gods in a moment.
This post will discuss the full cast list and everything we know about the series. We’ve already bought a lot of the cast in previous posts, but this is just a recap that will likely be expanded upon in future posts as we get closer to trailers and the series premiere.
Let’s jump into the council of the gods first.
Zeus And Poseidon Join The Council Of The Gods
You cannot have The Lightning Thief without Zeus and Poseidon waging war on each other due to the master bolt being stolen. Rick Riordan wrote on his website that Lance Reddick is playing Zeus, and Toby Stephens will play Percy’s father, Poseidon.
While Toby’s name might not be recognisable to most people, his mother is someone most people may be familiar with. His mum is Dame Maggie Smith, probably best known for her role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. She’s also well known for playing Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey. Another fun fact! Minerva is the Roman name for Athena, Poseidon’s niece and rival, one of Zeus’ daughters and Annabeth’s mother. So perhaps it was fate that Toby was cast as Percy’s dad.
Lance is known for his role as Charon in the John Wick films. He has also been in Law & Order and The Wire. Rick mentioned in his website post that Lance portrayed characters with power in every role he played. Moreover, it seems natural that he is the King of the Gods.
Toby and Lance were announced last due to Zeus and Poseidon appearing much later in the story.
The Other Gods
Don’t expect to see the entire Olympian council of gods in the first season. Actors will be cast in the roles only when the characters appear in the respective book, which is a book per season. Rick has said that Season 2 hasn’t been greenlit yet, but he has his fingers crossed that it will be. So, one example we can use is Annabeth’s mother, Athena. Likewise, the Goddess of Wisdom appears in a vision in book two, Sea of Monsters but doesn’t make her first actual appearance until book four, The Titan’s Curse.
So, depending on whether the series is renewed for two more seasons, we won’t likely see Athena until either Season 2 or Season 4.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hermes is an exception to this rule. The character doesn’t appear in the books until Sea of Monsters. However, Rick has said in the past that new elements will be added for storytelling purposes in the series that never existed in the books. This will allow the audience to have a better understanding of the characters.
This will come in handy when parts of Luke’s backstory come into play.
More On The God Front
Round out the Olympians (currently); we have Jay Duplass, who will play Hades, the third of the Big Three. And yes. We know that Hades isn’t an Olympian, but he could have been if Zeus had allowed it. We also have Timothy Omundson as God of the Forge, Hephaestus. Adam Copeland as Clarisse La Rue’s father, Ares, the God of War. Jason Mantzoukas will be Dionysus, the God of Wine banished by Zeus from Olympus. Finally, we have a non-god but a child of Kronos and half-brother of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, the centaur Chiron, played by Glynn Turman.
Welcome To Camp Half-Blood, Demigods!
The first castings we got were for Percy, Annabeth and Grover. Walker Scobell is Percy Jackson, the demigod son of Poseidon. Leah Sava Jeffries is Annabeth Chase, a demigod daughter of Athena. And we have Aryan Simhadri as Grover Underwood, Percy’s Satyr best friend and protector who also was the protector of Annabeth, Luke and their deceased friend, Thalia Grace.
Charlie Bushnell is Luke Castellan, a demigod son of Hermes, a longtime friend of Grover and Annabeth and has obvious feelings for the daughter of Athena. Dior Longjohn is Clarisse La Rue, a demigod daughter of Ares who develops a hatred for Percy while at camp.
Humans
Virginia Kull is Sally Jackson, Percy’s mortal mother. Timm Sharp is Gabe Ugilano, Sally’s husband and Percy’s vile stepfather, and Olivea Morton is Nancy Bobofit, Percy and Grover’s school bully at Yancy Academy.
Mythical Creatures
The Flash‘s Jessica Parker Kennedy is Medusa, a gorgon and former lover of Poseidon. She gets her head cut off by Percy. Megan Mullally as Alecto/Ms Dodds, one of Hades’ furies and the pre-algebra teacher at Yancy Academy at the beginning of the story.
[Editor’s note: technically, Chiron is a creature, but he’s a main character, so I put him with the gods, given he is a child of Kronos.]Suzanne Cryer is Echidna, a monster.
Smaller Details
Filming took place in Vancouver, Canada and will serve as the backdrop for New York and Camp Half-Blood. Principle photography started in June 2022 and will have concluded by the end of January 2023.
No firm release date is set, but the series may debut on Disney+ in late 2023 at the earliest or early 2024 at the latest. Rick Riordan has said that he has seen the director’s cuts for episodes 1-6 and the dailies (raw footage) for episodes 7 and 8. So everything is coming together; it might be a while until we get any new information.
In the photo above with Walker, Toby and Lance, you’ll notice that Walker is wearing two necklaces. The one with the beads is the same one worn by Annabeth (Leah), which Percy is given later in the Lightning Thief book, indicating that we’ll see a version of the scene in the back half of the season. It also suggests that the photo was taken recently, though it depends on when the scenes with Zeus and Poseidon were filmed.
