A Percy Jackson Disney+ Series Star Also Had A Small Role In The First Movie

A new generation of fans are being introduced to Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series of novels, thanks to Disney+. The books, which follow the son of the Greek god Poseidon, received a movie adaptation in 2010, along with a sequel in 2013. In 2023, the novels earned a revisit in the form of an original TV series streaming on Disney+. Now two seasons in, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" has taken a fresh look at the source material, remaining more faithful to the novels than the earlier films. However, the series holds one unexpected connection to the 2010 movie.

The second season of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" revolved around a quest for the Golden Fleece, which Percy (Walker Scobell) learns is guarded by the cyclops Polyphemus. A significant antagonist in the second season, Polyphemus is played by Aleks Paunovic. His casting as the cyclops on the Percy Jackson series is notable, because it's a twist on Paunovic's previous work. In 2010's "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief," Paunovic played an unnamed cyclops seen briefly running through a forest.

Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Paunovic said the producers of the series didn't know about his role in the film, and he "wasn't going to say anything until the contract was done," in case it would affect his casting. Executive producer Dan Shotz's reaction when he found out? "Well, that's an Easter egg for people."

Fans of Greek mythology will be familiar with Polyphemus as the cyclops encountered by Odysseus in Homer's "The Odyssey." Polyphemus was blinded by Odysseus, which informs his current appearance in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians."

Paunovic talked about the prosthetics work that went into both of his experiences in becoming a cyclops. "The only thing different was the eye," the actor revealed, explaining that, "in the first [movie], we had a real, practical eye, so I had tiny little slits for my eyes so I could see, and then that's what they would CGI." The process of creating Polyphemus' blinded, one-eyed look on the Disney+ series was more reliant on digital effects, with a computer-generated eye created based on Paunovic's own eye movements. "So it's actually my eye, and my eye reacting to the scene."

Paunovic revealed he spent around five hours in the makeup chair to become Polyphemus, "putting on about 40 pounds of prosthetics ... and the headpiece alone was about 15 pounds on top of the 40." Polyphemus was last seen being thrown off a cliff by his half-brother and fellow cyclops Tyson (Daniel Diemer), with his fate left ambiguous.

"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" is set to return for a third season later this year, while a different interpretation of Polyphemus is due to appear in Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" this July.