Percy Jackson and the Olympians star Leah Sava Jeffries shares a confident response to the Annabeth casting backlash. Rick Riordan's best-selling fantasy series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, follows the exploits of the titular teenager after he discovers he is a Greek demigod and son of Poseidon. With the help of Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, and Grover Underwood, a satyr, Percy prevents the Titans from destroying the world. Riordan published the first novel in 2005, followed by an installment every year until 2009.
Percy Jackson has already been adapted into two feature films, which starred Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, and Brandon T. Jackson as the main trio. These two movies, The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters, performed well at the box office, though failed to win over diehard fans of the books, which caused the film series to stall. This led to development of another Percy Jackson adaption for Disney+ that Riordan is directly involved with. The series recently announced its main trio - Walker Scobell as Percy, Aryan Simhadri as Grover, and Jeffries as Annabeth. These castings, which swap races from the books, have also been met with some backlash.
Now, Jeffries is specifically responding to the backlash regarding her casting as Annabeth. In a video shared by @updatespercy on Twitter, the 12-year-old actor thanks fans for their love and support before briefly addressing the hate she's been receiving. Jeffries assures fans the backlash isn't having an effect on her and the haters are just wasting time, as she and so many have confidence in her ability to play Annabeth. Read her full response below:
To whoever is hating, stop doing that. I know you think that's going to hurt me though. It's not. You're just wasting time. I'm still confident. Everyone else is confident. Everyone else is happy for me. So don't try to bring me down. It's not going to work.
The first live-action Percy Jackson adaptation by 20th Century Fox and Harry Potter director Chris Columbus controversially cast significantly older actors to play the teenage trio, which many fans found strange and unconvincing despite this being a consistent issue with Hollywood adaptations. The upcoming Disney+ version remedies this problem by casting three age-appropriate actors. Rather unsurprisingly, some are now are taking issue with both Annabeth and Grover's race-swaps.
Jeffries is clearly in tune to this backlash and able to respond with maturity beyond her years. However, the response is only coming from a small faction of the fanbase, as the majority of reactions have been overwhelmingly positive and completely on board with Riordan's decision to cast two young people of color and bring some diversity to the franchise. For those who take issue with the actors' appearance not matching their characters' descriptions in the books, perhaps it would be best to give the young actors a chance and wait to see their performances in Percy Jackson and the Olympians before judging the casting decisions.
Source: @updatespercy/Twitter