Leah Sava Jeffries, who plays Annabeth Chase in Percy Jackson And The Olympians, reveals the combat training the cast underwent.
With the first two episodes dropping on Disney+ on 20th December, the Percy Jackson And The Olympians series is off to a great start. Adapted from Rick Riordan’s books about a young boy who discovers he’s the son of a Greek god, the show stars Walker Scobell (The Adam Project, Secret Headquarters) as the titular character. Starring alongside him are Aryan Simhadri as Percy’s Satyr protector Grover, and Leah Sava Jeffries as fellow Demigod Annabeth Chase.
There’s a fair amount of action in the series, with the leading trio facing off against various monsters from Greek mythology. At a recent roundtable, Jeffries got talking about the combat training they underwent to prepare for the show. It sounds like a challenging experience made enjoyable by the fact that the crew weren’t too precious about the practice swords.
“On that first day when we went to go meet [the crew], they were like, ‘Hey guys, go grab your thing,’ and they actually let me keep one of their practice swords. It was so cool. I still have it actually,” Jeffries recalled. “They let me write my name on it and stuff. But basically that was going to be our sword that we use for the rest of the practice training time.
“When we first got in on that first day, it wasn’t like, ‘don’t flip it, don’t run with it, don’t do this.’ It wasn’t any of that. It was like, all right, grab your swords, we’re going to teach you how to do this,” the actor continued. “They made us run in a circle. They made us do like these jumping jacks in a circle, but it wasn’t just standing there. They made us do it while running – like we did jumping jacks while moving sideways and stuff and everything.”
While training may have been fairly serious, it sounds like it was all worthwhile in the end. “As a reward, we played ping pong after. So that was good!”
Prior to starring in the series, Jeffries made her acting debut in the musical drama show Empire. More recently, she starred in Beast (the film where Idris Elba punches a lion) as Elba’s younger daughter, Norah.
Percy Jackson And The Olympians is comprised of eight episodes that are streaming weekly on Disney+. Rick Riordan has been heavily involved in the show, serving as co-creator and executive producer. The initial season of the show adapts the first book in the series – The Lightning Thief – which was published in 2005. Writing for the second season started in March this year, although further seasons of the show haven’t yet been greenlit.
The third episode of Percy Jackson And The Olympians is streaming on Disney+ on 27th December, with further episodes streaming weekly on Wednesdays.
