Percy Jackson: Who Was Cast As Medusa In The TV Series?
The long-awaited release of the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" TV series is only a few months away. The Disney+ original show promises to be the first truly faithful adaptation of the popular Rick Riordan-penned book series of the same name. The show's December premiere comes 13 and 10 years after "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" and "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters" were released in theaters. Those two Logan Lerman-led movies were Hollywood's first attempts at capitalizing on the success of Riordan's original novels, but they were justifiably considered major disappointments by both film critics and die-hard fans alike.
Now, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" is primed to rectify the mistakes of its source material's previous, failed adaptations. The show's eight-episode debut season will cover the entirety of "The Lightning Thief," the first installment of Riordan's book series, which means that it'll introduce viewers to far more than just its core heroes, Percy (Walker Scobell), Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), and Grover (Aryan Simhadri). The season is also expected to feature, among other characters, memorable figures like Ares (Adam Copeland), Poseidon (Toby Stephens), Chiron (Glynn Turman), and Medusa, who not only has living snakes instead of hair, but whose eyes have the power to turn anyone who looks at them into stone.
The latter character, a playful riff on the mythological gorgon of the same name, will be played by Jessica Parker Kennedy, an actor likely best known among TV viewers for her recurring roles as Max on the Starz adventure series, "Black Sails," and Nora West-Allen, a.k.a. XS, on The CW's "The Flash."
Jessica Parker Kennedy isn't the first actor to play Medusa in a Percy Jackson adaptation
Jessica Parker Kennedy is set to add yet another high-profile title to her already impressive list of TV credits with her role on "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." It's worth noting that the actor isn't the first performer who has been cast as Medusa in a live-action "Percy Jackson" adaptation. On the contrary, the character was previously played by "Kill Bill" star Uma Thurman in the Chris Columbus-directed "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief."
As is the case in the original novel, that 2010 film puts Medusa at the center of a major second-act set piece at a garden emporium that is full of — you guessed it — stone statues. Right now, it's unclear whether "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" will expand or tweak the aforementioned sequence, which is a highlight of "The Lightning Thief" that remixes the original Greek myth involving Medusa in ways that are both clever and surprising. Either way, Kennedy herself has already received some noteworthy praise for her performance as the famous mythological gorgon.
Indeed, when he announced that the actor had been cast as the character, "Percy Jackson" creator Rick Riordan admitted, "Her poised, powerful, elegant take on Medusa blew me away!" Meanwhile, in her own interview with Cageside Press, Kennedy opened up about what it was like working on the forthcoming Disney+ series, teasing, "The writing is really wonderful in the show. I think people are going to love it."
Fans will find out if she's right or not when "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" premieres December 20 on Disney+.