‘Percy Jackson’ Star Leah Sava Jeffries Jokes the ‘Least Challenging’ Part of Annabeth Was Acting Annoyed With Walker Scobell | Video

“It was super easy,” the actress tells TheWrap

When you’re playing a character with multiple books worth of material written about them, it can be hard to find your starting point. But, for “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” star Leah Sava Jeffries, there was one aspect of Annabeth Chase that was easy to harness: her annoyance with Percy Jackson.

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” premiering Wednesday on Disney+, centers on Percy (Walker Scobell) and his quest to find Zeus’ master lightning bolt. It was stolen and the gods have presumed him responsible, so have tasked him with finding and returning it. With Annabeth (Jeffries) and his friend and protector Grover (Aryan Simhadri) by his side, the trio sets off on a dangerous adventure.

The series is an adaptation of Rick Riordan’s books of the same name, and fans of those books have long appreciated the dynamic between Annabeth and Percy. Of course, that dynamic is largely just Annabeth being exasperated — but still fond — of Percy. And, according to Jeffries, that was “super easy” to emulate.

“They were like ‘We want you to try it like this, we want you to try it where you’re nicer to Percy,’ which rarely happened,” Jeffries told TheWrap with a laugh.

Scobell and Simhadri were quick to confirm that, with Scobell admitting it was “rarely rarely,” and Simhadri adding “on set and off.”

Jeffries added, “Sometimes they’d be like ‘I want you to act like you’re very annoyed of Percy,’ which was super easy, actually! So, that was the least challenging, you know what I mean?”

For Jeffries, the actual hardest part of playing Annabeth was just the time before she had the guidance of Rick Riordan. But even then, she was excited about the challenge.

“I feel like the challenge was actually fun! I had fun building my character,” Jeffries explained. “I feel like before I had the advice from Mr. Rick, that was probably the challenging and stressful part, thinking of what I was gonna start with first.”

You can watch TheWrap’s full interview with Jefferies, Scobell and Simhadri in the video above.

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” premieres Wednesday, Dec. 20, on Disney+.

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