Percy Jackson Season 3 Goes Darker: The Cast Grew Into It

Season 3 of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" premieres on Disney+ on Nov. 20, and by the cast's account it is a darker, heavier ride. The show's three leads walked the press line at Lucca Comics in Italy alongside showrunners Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz, and they told Variety exactly what four years on one series teaches you: how to scream, sob and argue on command.

Walker Scobell, now 17, plays Percy Jackson. Leah Sava Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri play his best friends Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood. They started as 13-to-16-year-olds. Simhadri, the oldest at 20, says the long haul changed his craft.

"I used to have a really hard time crying on set," Simhadri says. "I always found it really difficult, and there was a day on Season 3 where I just had to really sob, and now I find it really easy." He frames it as mutual growth: "Your character helps you, and you help your character. Like you both grow together, like you're genuinely in a friendship with someone in a weird way."

What did the other two learn?

Jeffries got the screaming scenes. "Have you seen those interviews where they'll ask the girl to scream and then she'll just scream out of nowhere. Nah, daddy, I can't do that," she says, laughing. "Sorry, I'm using my school slang." She welcomes the tonal shift: "It's a good thing that it's so much darker this season, which I'm very happy about because for me personally, I love playing the dark type of scenes."

Scobell, dry as ever, credits the writers. "There's only so much I can do because a lot of the time it's just Percy having things explained to him, and then action," he says. "So, there's only so much room in there to grow."

Simhadri notes the scripts deviate only slightly from Rick Riordan's novels. "Our writers are so incredible that it would be almost disrespectful to not honor what they've put on the page," he says. "We learn the books inside and out, so that way on the day we can just focus."

Is the show aging up with its audience?

The season opens with a nod to Russell Mulcahy's 1986 fantasy "Highlander," and the references won't stop there. "There are homages to lots of films going forward," Shotz says. He frames the shift honestly: "This has been a much heavier season, even with the conversations we have behind the scenes about what they're dealing with, loss and struggle. It's been pretty wild to explore that with these actors who can really handle it." He adds: "They started when they were 13, and now they're more mature and they can handle it. That part has been awesome to watch." Somewhere, fellow showrunner Craig Silverstein is smiling, Shotz suggests.

Timing helps. Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" ruled the summer box office, and Season 2, "Sea of Monsters," arrived six to eight months before it. "People who felt 'The Odyssey' was too mature for their kids, they could show them 'Sea of Monsters,'" Steinberg says. "So, it was a good little connection that was happening."

What about the Harry Potter competition?

The "Harry Potter" franchise is moving to television, but Steinberg declines the rivalry framing. "I don't know that it's healthy for us to be thinking about ourselves in competition with anything," he says. "When you're in an adaptation exercise, you are in conversation with the book, and we are lucky enough to be in conversation with the book and its author." He closes with diplomacy: "We have friends on that show, and we hope that it does great."

Off screen, the trio have bonded through the Comic Con circuit, and their geography is precise. "I feel like Italy and Brazil are the biggest, happiest and most energetic," Scobell says. "London is very quiet but engaged. If you can make the London crowd laugh, it's a great feeling." Jeffries agrees: "Going from Brazil to London was crazy, the difference."

Nov. 20 will show whether a darker Percy can keep the faithful — and pull in the ones who've aged out of the middle-grade shelf.