Lin-Manuel Miranda teases Percy Jackson role: 'Such a fun world to live in'

One of the main innovations of the new Disney+ adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians is that the young demigod characters are actually played by young actors; at 15, star Walker Scobell is basically the same age as Percy in Rick Riordan’s original books. The gods, however, are a different matter.

The overlords of Olympus are immortal beings, and the contrast between them and their demigod offspring is apparent in the star-studded casting. Last week, wrestler Adam Copeland (a.k.a. Edge) made his entrance as the war god Ares, and this week’s episode introduces Percy, Grover (Aryan Simhadri), and Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) to the messenger god Hermes — played by none other than Hamilton maestro Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Check out Miranda’s introductory scene in the exclusive clip below. Like Copeland and other adult actors on Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Miranda was introduced to the franchise through his own kids.

"Filming this scene was really fun because my oldest son Sebastian was with me on set," Miranda tells EW in a statement. "It was just the two of us on this adventure in Canada. Walker, Leah, and Aryan are wildly talented, and they were incredibly kind to my son. They had school between camera setups, so Sebastian doing his homework with Percy, Annabeth, and Grover was a life highlight."

Miranda continues, "'Uncle' Rick Riordan was on set for our scenes; he told us all about the origins of Percy Jackson as a story he told his own kids, and signed our copy of Percy Jackson's Greek Gods. It's such a fun world to live in. Second season when?"

In Riordan's story, the Greek gods are strongly defined by their relationship with their half-human children. So even though Percy Jackson viewers are meeting Hermes this week, they've already gotten to know his son Luke (Charlie Bushnell). Hermes and Luke don't share screentime this season, but Miranda and Bushnell have started a playful offscreen relationship of their own.

“We have this funny online banter,” Bushnell tells EW. “When they announced that he was playing Hermes and he posted on Instagram, I commented like, ‘Dad??’ And he replied like, ‘son!!’ And then I was actually in Greece over the summer, and we went to a museum in Athens and there was a statue of Hermes. I posted a picture with the statue of Hermes, like ‘ran into the old man in Athens,’ and I actually tagged Lin, which some people thought was funny. And then he commented on my post and said he was gonna take away my phone plan. So we have this funny thing going on.”

New episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians hit Disney+ every Tuesday at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET.

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