Percy Jackson has found his fellow heroes. Aryan Simhadri (Disney’s Spin) and Leah Sava Jeffries (Empire) will play Percy’s friends Grover Underwood and Annabeth Chase, respectively, in the upcoming Disney+ original series Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Simhadri and Jeffries will star alongside Walker Scobell, who was recently announced to play the titular character in this epic adventure. A Disney Branded Television series produced by 20th Television, Percy Jackson and the Olympians will start production soon in Vancouver.
Based on Disney Hyperion’s best-selling book series (See on Amazon) by award-winning author Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians tells the fantastical story of a 12-year-old modern demigod, Percy Jackson, who’s just coming to terms with his newfound divine powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt.
With help from his friends Grover and Annabeth, Percy must embark on an adventure of a lifetime to find it and restore order to Olympus.
Aryan Simhadri stars as Grover Underwood – a satyr, half boy, and half goat, disguised as a 12-year-old boy. Grover cares deeply about others and will always choose what is best for them, sometimes at his own expense.
Though cautious by nature, he’ll always throw himself into a fight to protect his friends, especially his best friend, Percy Jackson.
Leah Sava Jeffries stars as Annabeth Chase. As a true daughter of the Greek goddess Athena, Annabeth is a brilliant strategist with an active and curious mind. After having spent the last five years at Camp Half-Blood, she longs to test her mettle in the human world, which she barely remembers.
She trains Percy to survive the mythological world, and in turn, he helps her connect with her humanity.
Riordan and Jon Steinberg will serve as writers of the pilot, and James Bobin will direct. Steinberg will oversee the series with his producing partner, Dan Shotz.
Steinberg and Shotz serve as executive producers alongside Bobin, Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, Bert Salke, Monica Owusu-Breen, Jim Rowe, Anders Engström, Jet Wilkinson, and The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell and D.J. Goldberg.
From commercials to Disney Channel stardom, Aryan Simhadri has had a whirlwind career spanning over 11 years, which is especially notable given he’s just 15. This energetic and outgoing kid was scouted by Kids Acting School, ICT in OC, at the age of four after moving to Irvine, CA. As he quickly fell in love with the art, his talents were first recognized in a Qualcomm commercial.
From there, his talent bloomed into multiple television roles over the next few years, from ABC’s How to Live With Your Parents (For the rest of your life) to Will & Grace. He got his break in movies with Netflix/WWE movie The Main Event. Most recently, he has been seen as the lead in Disney Channel’s original movie Spin, the first to feature a South East Asian-Indian cast as the leads. He also just wrapped the filming of Trevor: The Musical after a successful run in New York.
Continuing to work on his craft, his improv skills were finely tuned when he was cast on Disney’s Just Roll With It, where the audience chose what happened in the scenes. He has also extended his reach into voice-over work, where you can hear him in movies like The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. He also lends his voice to Paramount Television’s Adventures in Wonder Park as Banky, and most recently, the role of Tiffany in the award-winning Adventure Time series television movie Distant Lands and Disney’s Mira, The Royal Detective.
Leah Sava Jeffries was born in the Metro Detroit area and started her career appearing in local commercials when she was a mere three years old. Since then, Leah has appeared alongside Taraji P. Henson in FOX’s Empire, as Lil Rey Howery’s daughter, Erica, on the FOX comedy Rel, and in the TD Jakes-produced Lifetime Television Network film Faith Under Fire. Her upcoming projects will include the Universal Pictures thriller Beast, opposite Idris Elba, as well as the Amazon Original Something from Tiffany’s from Hello Sunshine.
Mirko Parlevliet has been reporting on the entertainment industry since 1998 and founded Vital Thrills in 2018 to cover the latest news on streaming, movies, TV, and video games.