By Courtney Potter
Season 3 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians is about to bring The Titan’s Curse to life!
If Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) learned anything after completing two epic quests with Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava’ Jeffries), it’s that he would be lost without her. So when Annabeth is captured by the forces of Kronos, Percy must embark on a perilous journey to rescue her. He must free a goddess in chains; confront the Titan’s curse; and avoid triggering the fall of Olympus! With Grover (Aryan Simhadri) by his side, Percy must join some unlikely questmates to confront a prophecy with dire consequences. Look for the new season to begin streaming November 20 on Disney+ and Hulu!
Obviously, that makes now the perfect time to revisit some incredible Percy Jackson-related content from this past August’s D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event… where Scobell and members of the cast—along executive producers Dan Shotz, Craig Silverstein, and Jon Steinberg—took to the Premiere Stage inside the Anaheim Convention Center to clue fans in on what they can expect from this sure-to-be-memorable season.
Scobell on the journey both he and Percy undertake in Season 3 of the series:
“One of my favorite things about Percy is, every time there’s some impossible thing, there’s not a question in his mind—he’s going to do it. That’s so fun to play as an actor. [And then] watching Annabeth go off the edge is kind of like, ‘Okay, here we go, let’s do it…’ Going through this whole thing without her, without Leah—I’ve done like basically every single scene with Leah since we started the show and this is the first time where she’s just gone for six months. That was weird!”
Simhadri on how the brotherhood between Grover and Percy continues to evolve:
“I think one of the things I’m most excited for people to see this season is, we get to spend a lot more time with them just talking as friends. Their ‘mentorship’ dynamic changes now that Percy’s really coming into his own—he’s learning how to use his powers; he’s got two quests under his belt. [Walker and I] lived right next to each other and so what we would do, a lot of times, is run our scenes together—and we would improv and like, cut each other off. We’d even go to the gym and run them, as if we were actually just talking to each other. So I think what I’m most excited for people to see is how dynamic grows; it’s more like our [real-life friendship] dynamic now.”
Charlie Bushnell on returning for Season 3 and further exploring Luke as a character:
“What I love about the show is that we really get to flesh out the good and the bad of Luke. I feel like with the books, they’re all Percy’s POV—and I feel, especially after The Lightning Thief, Percy despises Luke, which still holds true in the show. But I feel the version of Luke that we see in the books is skewed by Percy’s hatred for him a little bit. What’s so great about the show, and [the creative team] has written it so well, Luke’s not quite as black and white as that, in his ‘evilness.’ It exists more in a gray area, which has been a lot of fun to explore—especially this season. Walker mentioned Leah not being there, and that’s because [Annabeth’s] spending a lot of time with Luke, so we get to explore more of that stuff.”
Tamara Smart (Thalia) on how she prepared to embody the character once again:
“I wish I could say it came naturally—but I think truly, honestly, there’s a level of delusion that comes with Thalia. You have to be unafraid to be a 100% all the time, I think you can’t go halfway with Thalia; she never is half of anything. She’s 100% angry; she’s 100% sad; she’s 100% screaming at Percy—all the time. I think there were a couple of times where we would prepare for scenes and I would just have to apologize and be say, ‘Hey, it’s going to be a lot of personal space invading.”
Levi Chrisopulos (Nico) on a favorite behind-the-scenes memory (so far!):
“Getting to see Camp Half-Blood for the first time! Everyone in the beginning, during prep, was like ‘Oh, just wait till we go to Camp Half-Blood—it’s so pretty; [all the sets are] practical. And I thought sure, yeah. Well, it does not disappoint. It’s gorgeous; it’s so unreal. So it’s a little cliché, but I’d say seeing the camp for the first time is definitely one of my favorites.”
Olive Abercrombie (Bianca) about what part of filming Percy Jackson dazzled her the most:
“It was insane walking onto a show this big. I’ve never done something like this! There were so many things that surprised me—like what Levi said, how amazing all the sets were; the amount of detail was incredible. But the thing that shocked me the most was the work that goes into character prep, because I’ve never done that amount. We spent weeks before [filming] working on the Nico/Bianca sibling dynamic. And I am so thankful for it, because I think it helped me play the best Bianca I could portray.”
Saara Chaudry (Zoë Nightshade) on bringing her character to life:
“It’s been the biggest honor and privilege of my life. This character has been held in so many people’s hearts for so many years, and to be able to be the first person to kind of ‘breathe life’ into her has been such a privilege. There’s something really interesting about putting on a costume and letting that be a part of how you embody a character—and so every day it was a process of allowing the ritual of putting on the circlet, putting on Zoë’s coat, and having my bow and arrow with me be something that spoke to the character and helped me step into her every day. And our costume designer, Jennifer, absolutely nailed it!”
Dafne Keen (Artemis) on prepping for action sequences to come in Season 3:
“I can’t tease much, because this is a fight set further on in the season—but I can say we had a huntress camp, which was really fun, [and] which meant we all got to train together. We got to learn archery and how to move as a pack, which I think was pretty special for us as a crew. We’re supposed to be a body that’s been together for millennia. It was also amazing as an actor to get to know these women before we got to set—so it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, these strangers are supposed to be my closest confidants.’ It was really amazing. And without giving too much away, there’s a pretty sick fight that you can imagine that I was very excited to do…”
Silverstein on how the stakes are raised this season:
“Well, the Titans make their appearance—and the war that we’ve been talking about for a couple seasons really starts to come into focus. And with that, the Olympians are potentially facing their own destruction. The demigods were used to worrying about dying, not the Olympians. But now the Olympians have to worry, and that puts all the pressure on these guys. So I think that’s where all the stakes are coming from—and you feel it across the board.”
Steinberg on how fulfilling it is to see the cast evolve over time:
“It’s hard not to think about it all the time. We were just standing around yesterday [talking about how] the first person we saw was this guy [indicates Scobell] when he was a little boy. Watching every season—watching his character grow, watching him grow into it; watching everybody grow into these roles, and watching their roles grow into them. Watching the characters become something more than just a book—become something that everybody in this cast has breathed life into, I think, is part of why it’s getting this response from fans who have known these characters on the page for a long time and are just meeting them flesh and blood.”
Shotz on what he’s most excited for fans to see in Season 3:
“I can’t wait for you guys to go to the Junkyard of the Gods [and see] Talos and everything that comes with that. You saw a sneak peek of it [in the trailer], but it is even more epic than what you’ve seen there, It’s pretty wild! The whole team, both the set team that built the sets for it and the post-production team who got this all figured out—they outdid themselves. I’m going to leave you with that for the rest of the show…”