Megan Mullally is among the new actors to join the cast of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the upcoming Disney+ series based on Rick Riordan’s children’s fantasy novels, Variety reports.
Mullally, best known for her roles on sitcoms including Will & Grace and Party Down, has been cast as Mrs. Dodds, the cranky math teacher of Percy, a 12-year-old boy who discovers that he’s a demigod.
Also joining the cast is Jason Mantzoukas, the comedian who’s made guest appearances on shows like Parks and Recreation and The Good Place. He’ll be playing the god Dionysus, who doubles as a camp director for Percy and his fellow demigods.
Other new cast members include Timm Sharp (On the Verge), Virginia Kull (Big Little Lies), and Glynn Turman (The Wire).
Walker Scobell (The Adam Project) was announced as the show’s lead actor in April, while Aryan Simhadri and Leah Sava Jeffries joined the cast last month. The casting of Jeffries, who is Black, drew racist comments from some readers upset that she’d be playing a character who was White in the books. Riordan hit back at the criticism, writing, “You are judging her appropriateness for this role solely and exclusively on how she looks.…Friends, that is racism.”
The pilot of the series will be written by Riordan and Jon Steinberg and directed by James Bobin. It’s expected to premiere as early as 2023.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
