It was key that the characters weren’t “aged up”. <\/p>
It\u2019s almost time for Percy Jackson and the Olympians<\/a> to hit our screens \u2013 and the bosses behind the series have revealed the one dealbreaker that would have meant the series wouldn\u2019t have been made.<\/p>\n The Disney Plus series stars a trio of young actors<\/a> \u2013 14-year-old Walker Scobell as Percy, 14-year-old Leah Jeffries as Annabeth and 17-year-old Aryan Simhadri as Grover \u2013 and it was key that the actors\u2019 ages matched up with the characters.<\/p>\n Comparing the show to the original film series, which starred a 17-year-old Logan Lerman as Percy, producer Rebecca Riordan exclusively told RadioTimes.com<\/a>: \u201cWe wanted to not have it aged up, and so that was very important.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, really, we would not have done this if we had been told we had to hire 18-year-old actors to play these parts.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause it\u2019s not that story. You know, it\u2019s a story of a young boy, you know, finding who he is, discovering who he is and how he can work with his friends to achieve a goal.\u201d<\/p>\n Author and series creator Rick added: \u201cYou can\u2019t really do a coming of age story with magic and mystery, and all of that wonderful sort of tween sort of angst and energy, if you\u2019re working with 25-year-olds who are pretending to be 18, as Hollywood so often loves to do \u2013 it\u2019s just, it has a totally different tone.\u201d<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t exactly easy to find their magic trio. Asked about the audition process, Rebecca admitted: \u201cIt was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExhaustive,\u201d Rick added. \u201cIt was thousands and thousands and thousands of audition tapes and so many talented young actors.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, you know, it was a question of finding the right voice, the right personality and the right energy, and also to find three excellent actors who worked well together. And that was a whole different challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we had tapes, we discussed it with the production team. We had in person auditions.\u201d<\/p> However, it certainly paid off, with Rebecca recalling: \u201cWhen I saw Leah Jeffries\u2019s tape, I fell in love with her immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Rick recalled: \u201cAnd then we had chemistry reads in person with the actors together. But I mean, these three, they rose to the top pretty decisively.\u201d<\/p>\n [squirrel-affiliate-playlist squirrel_playlist_id=\u201d608\u2033 \/]<\/p>\n As for Scobell himself, he revealed to RadioTimes.com<\/strong> that, while he hasn\u2019t met Lerman in person just yet, the older actor has shared some messages and tips.<\/p>\n He added of his version of Percy: \u201cWe stayed as close to the books as possible while making it entertaining and adding characters, so I think the biggest difference between the book and the show is that it\u2019s not from a specific point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n Percy Jackson and the Olympians premieres on Disney Plus on Wednesday 20th December 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>Sign up to Disney Plus for \u00a34.99 a month or \u00a379.90 for a year<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Check out more of our\u00a0Fantasy<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on.<\/strong><\/p>\n Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only \u00a310 \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n It was key that the characters weren’t “aged up”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":42201,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/12\/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-bosses-would-have-rejected-older-actors.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/12\/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-bosses-would-have-rejected-older-actors-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/12\/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-bosses-would-have-rejected-older-actors-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/12\/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-bosses-would-have-rejected-older-actors.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/12\/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-bosses-would-have-rejected-older-actors.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/12\/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-bosses-would-have-rejected-older-actors.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/12\/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-bosses-would-have-rejected-older-actors.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"It was key that the characters weren't \"aged up\".","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/42200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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