‘Wanted to give faithful adaptation to fans’

There is a hero’s journey in every story, said Walker Scobell, who wanted to get it right with his iteration of Percy Jackson, the lead protagonist of author Rick Riordan’s famous novel series.

Scobell made a promising debut with Netflix’s ‘The Adam Project’, co-starring Ryan Reynolds and Mark Ruffalo and now leads his own show, ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’, adapted from Riordan’s book series.

The 14-year-old actor plays the lead character, the son of the Greek god Poseidon, who embarks on various quests to prevent disasters in both the mortal and mythical worlds. The character was earlier essayed by actor Logan Lerman in two feature films.

“There is definitely some pressure from ourselves to try to get it right. And we didn’t want to let anyone down, give the fans a very faithful adaptation and give them what they deserve after so many years,” Scobell told PTI in a virtual interview.

He added, “It’s based on lessons that you learn in real life. Everyone has a hero’s journey to some extent and I think every movie and every character has a hero’s journey. And Percy’s journey was very defined and I think it was really important to get that right.”

‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’, which currently streams on ‘Disney+ Hotstar’, sees the titular hero journeying across America to return Zeus’ master bolt and stop an all-out war.

After losing his mother, Percy is sheltered at ‘Camp Half-Blood’, a sanctuary for demigod children. He must prove himself and confront his origins once he discovers he too is a demigod.

Scobell said that he was excited to step in and play the iconic role, as he is a fan of the books.

“We were all pretty big fans before we even started filming. I read the books when I was in fifth grade,” he added.

In the series, Scobell is joined by actors Leah Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri as Percy’s friends Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood, respectively.

Jeffries, 14, said that she was happy to have Riordan’s books for reference while she was playing Chase, who is the daughter of Greek goddess Athena and has been training at ‘Camp Half-Blood’ for five years.

“Coming into playing Annabel, it wasn’t just like some new character. They’re making the show for the first time ever and it has a big backstory. They had movies made of it. So, I feel like it was more of an excitement to know that many people have put themselves into this character. And now that I have got to do it with a whole series for many years and be this character, I feel like it’s even better. So, reading the books and watching the movies and seeing how the characters play out and how the chemistry is, I definitely feel like that helped a lot with the series as well,” she said.

Simhadri, a 17-year-old Indian American actor, described Underwood as the ‘soul of the group’. In Riordan’s books, Underwood is Percy’s best friend and a satyr, a half-human and half-goat who is disguised through magic as a 12-year-old boy.

“He tries to keep everything grounded and he’s very empathetic, which is very helpful when you’re dealing with characters like Percy and Annabeth, who really keep everything inside. He is able to have that connection and it was something that I talked to Walker and Leah about a lot,” he said.

The actor said that he wanted the connection between the three characters to appear natural on screen.

“You can’t force that kind of connection where you instantly know what they’re feeling. You can’t have that be artificial. And so that’s what a lot of the discussions, at least for my character, were about with Rick and everyone involved was - how to get that connection,” Simhadri added.

Created by Riordan and Jon Steinberg, ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ also stars Adam Copeland, Jason Mantzoukas, Timothy Omundson, Suzanne Cryer, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Olivia Morton, Azriel Dalman, Charlie Bushnell, Dior Goodjohn, Virginia Kull, Glynn Turman and Timm Sharp.AGENCIES