Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Live Panel Recap From San Diego Comic-Con

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is entering its sophomore season. After a record-setting debut on Disney+, the house of mouse wasted little time in renewing the world of demigods and monsters for a second installment. The serialized adaptation of Rick Riordan’s best-selling novels is scheduled to set sail next month, as production is slated to commence in August. Percy Jackson Season 2 will adapt the events of the second story in the core Percy Jackson pentalogy, The Sea of Monsters. Returning for Season 2 will be just about the entire ensemble from Season 1 including Walker Scobell (Percy Jackson), Aryan Simhadri (Grover Underwood), Leah Jeffries (Annabeth Chase), Charlie Bushnell (Luke), Dior Goodjohn (Clarisse La Rue), and many more, including a couple of new characters.

Ahead of production’s kick off, Percy Jackson and the Olympians hit San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H stage to discuss what’s to come in the show’s future.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Live SDCC Coverage

Percy Jackson and the Olympians has taken the Hall H stage at San Diego Comic-Con.

The panel begins with a recycled Percy Jackson Season 1 trailer featuring Walker Scobell’s Percy narrating how dangerous it is to be a half-blood. The footage eventually expands to a featurette that showcases the worldwide fandom. Headlines flash that tout the success of Percy Jackson Season 1. The footage concludes with a title card that reads “SEASON 2 IS COMING.”

Hades actor Jay Duplass is hosting and jokes that he does not have his throne with him.

Executive producers Dan Shotz and Jonathan E. Steinberg take the stage. Following them are actors Walker Scobell, Aryan Simhadri, Leah Jeffries, and Virginia Kull. Duplass makes a joke that Scobell is tossing firecrackers at him since day one. The crew on stage then discuss their favorite Percy Jackson Season 1 moments. Shotz praises Duplass and shouts out the core trio. He also adds that everyone has a massive passion for creating Percy Jackson and jokes that they all have inappropriate monologues when cameras are not rolling. Steinberg adds that he once met a father who had a dispute with his sons because his sons watched an episode without him, and Steinberg was shocked at how much families value consuming this franchise together.

Kull says her favorite Season 1 memory was getting motion sickness while riding a crazy prop. Simhadri praises making his Percy Jackson family over the past three years and also touts popping out of Cerebrus’s mouth. Jeffries loved working on water-based scenes and recalled finding a spider inside her armor during the capture the flag sequence.

Scobell mentions a memory of watching Simhadri attempt to maintain a hurt leg during a scene, which Simhadri legitimately kicked himself in order to accurately sell the pain as Grover. Simhadri eventually asked Scobell to kick him himself. Simhadri joked on stage that he was expecting Scobell to say the Ares fight is his favorite memory. Video of the Ares fight plays.

Scobell is asked if he could take Ares actor Adam Copeland in real life, to which he says, “No.” Copeland then wheels out on stage to surprise the cast. Copeland has a broken leg from a injury suffered during an AEW match earlier this year. He tells Scobell that he took that question personally. He then tells the crowd that it was easy to find Ares as a character because as a wrestler he knows how to convey a cantankerous attitude.

Jeffries says it was easy to take on her character, telling the crowd, “If you know, you know.” She says Annabeth’s intelligence made her internalize that attitude. She acknowledges that they stars of Percy Jackson were learning in Season 1 and are stepping up their acting game in Season 2. She says she loves the fans and teases that they will be going “there.”

Simhadri says getting into character as Grover was crazy. he watched a lot of goat videos to get inspiration for his performance. It took him almost one year to shed the practice of walking like a goat.

Kull gets praised for her performance as Sally Jackson. She says she strives to be as good of a mother as Sally is in real life and talks to her daughter about speaking bravely. She said that as an actress of her age, getting to do scenes like the Minotaur elicited a “yes please” reaction from her.

Scobell is asked about if swiping props from set has given him issues at TSA. He jokes but then emphasizes that he has genuinely been in “awe” on this journey.

Bloopers from Percy Jackson Season 1 air next. Flashes of Scobell’s action, Copeland tossing jokes around, blue screen sequences, and veteran actors messing up their lines are shown. Sizzle reel of behind-the-scenes footage airs next which ends with Scobell forgetting a line during a monologue and Jason Mantzoukas zoning out during a line delivery.

Steinberg says he let his inner fan guide him when it came to adapting the books for television, and added that having people who are involved with the books themselves like Rick and Becky Riordan helps tremendously. Shotz adds that they find “access points” for people to get into the characters. He also adds that they received “co-viewing” stats from Disney+ which revealed that families were watching together.

Duplass asks Scobell what he learned from having Rick Riordan on set. Scobell noted he felt bad for never talking to Riordan about anything personal but praised his passion and imagination. He blames Copeland’s surprise appearance for throwing him off during his response.

Jeffries is asked about building the team dynamic with Scobell and Simhadri. She says their chemistry did not take effort, and that doing training in the water and stunt work helped grow their bond. She is happy that COVID restrictions have loosened so they can be closer and interact more on set.

Simhadri praises Riordan as the nicest person he has ever met. He says getting validation from Riordan about his casting was all the motivation he needed.

Duplass jokes that he had to get in a new era of acting when he was first brought to the Volume stage, as his younger co-stars were already accustomed to the technology-advanced stage. Copeland praises the young stars for balancing acting and school at the same time. He says he realized that the show was hitting when teenage girls were starting to recognize him as Ares first and his wrestler persona second, something he says has not happened to him since the 1990s. Kull says she felt a responsibility to help raise and train her young co-stars but realized quickly that all of the kids involved have very strong families.

Season 2 teases begin coming. Steinberg confirms that it will follow The Sea of Monsters and notes that “it’s going to be very wet.”

Rick Riordan appears on screen to announce that Daniel Diemer has been cast as Tyson, Percy’s half-brother Cyclops, in Season 2. Diemer has a video package of himself walking around set where he says he has been a fan of the books since he was 10 years old. He thanks the fans. The core trio praise Diemer, noting they have wanted to talk about him playing Tyson for ages. Simhadri points out that Diemer “is like 6’5″” and Scobell jokes that Diemer is only a couple of inches taller than himself. Jeffries calls cap.

Question and answer time with the fans in attendance. Simhadri reveals he took the Hermes winged converse from set, to which Duplass jokes he already has a lawyer on the case. Simhadri is asked if they will host a “Say Yes to the Dress” next season, referencing how Grover is forced to wear a wedding dress by Polyphemus while trapped on his island. Scobell teases that he has seen concept art for the dress but stayed quiet as he does not want to risk messing with Disney snipers. Fans question about how the cast got into their characters, to which the trio all praise acting coach Andrew McIlroy. When asked what changes they would make to their characters, Copeland says he wants Ares to have a chariot pulled by Frenchie dogs. Kull wants to see Sally’s ex-boyfriend Gabe Ugliano go head-to-head with Poseidon, Percy’s father.

When asked who each of their godly parents would be in real life, Scobell says Poseidon, Jeffries says Athena first and Aphrodite second, and Simhadri says Apollo for being the god of art and also Hephaestus. Set pranks are brought up, to which Simhadri recalls a day that Jeffries locked him in their on-set classroom and shut off all the lights. The door was locked from the inside, so Simhadri got out easy, and Jeffries tried to run but fell over a trash can and crashed into a mini fridge. Kull noted she brought tic tacs for the young co-stars, who would eventually raid her purse for them. Final fan question asks the cast about their favorite books, to which Scobell praises the Heroes of Olympus sequel series. Simhadri says he recently rediscovered how good House of Hades is. Jeffries says she has begun to read the Heroes books.

That concludes the Percy Jackson and the Olympians panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024.