Detroit native Brandon T. Jackson

and Percy Jackson cast

By Kurt Anthony Krug

Working with director Chris Columbus on the set of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief was a phenomenal experience for Brandon T. Jackson, Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, and Jake Abel.

“It’s like taking your imagination to the gym and working it out,” Abel (The Lovely Bones, TV’s Supernatural) described working with Columbus. The director, 51, is no stranger to helming blockbuster fantasy films that are based on blockbuster fantasy novels and feature a young cast, given the fact that he directed the first two Harry Potter films.

During a round table at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham prior to the film’s Feb. 12 release date, Abel sat side-by-side his co-stars Detroit native Jackson (Tropic Thunder), Daddario (TV’s All My Children), and Lerman (3:10 to Yuma, TV’s Jack & Bobby). All of them sipped coffee and politely answered questions from reporters, deferring to one another when needed.

Percy Jackson is based on author Rick Riordan’s best-selling series of novels about a boy who learns he’s the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. It’s Greek mythology set in contemporary America.

The aforementioned actors are part of an ensemble that includes former 007 Pierce Brosnan (The World is Not Enough), Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction), Steve Coogan (Night at the Museum), Melina Kanakaredes (TV’s CSI: New York), Rosario Dawson (Sin City), Catherine Keener (Capote), Kevin McKidd (TV’s Journeyman), Sean Bean (the Lord of the Rings films), and Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix).

“I wasn’t as lucky as these guys to work with all of them,” explained Abel. “I mainly got to work with (Brosnan). I came to the set to watch (Coogan) and (Dawson) work as much as I could. It’s always a gift, I think, because you come to the set each day and you’re gonna get everything you need and more. You trust that they’re the caliber they are because of their talent and generosity. It really shined through with every single one of them.”

Lerman added, “This is a big movie! I’ve never been part of a big movie like this, on this level. The size kind of takes you back every day. And with Chris Columbus attached, this amazing filmmaker, I wouldn’t want to put my career in the hands of anybody else. I didn’t realize what I got myself into when I started. I’m like, ‘Who did I fool to get to this point?’ It never really hit me until I got to Vancouver (where the movie was shot) and saw these amazing sets. They built the Parthenon, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mount Olympus, and an enormous casino called Lotus Land.”

Upon Percy’s discovery of his godly powers, he is on a quest to rescue his mom (Keener) who is being held prisoner in Hades. Joining him are his friends Annabeth (Daddario), Luke (Abel), and Grover (Jackson).

“I looked up Grover on Wikipedia and it was like all this stuff on (the) Sesame Street (character),” quipped Jackson, a 2003 West Bloomfield High School alumnus. “Grover is a satyr; he’s a half-goat/half-man... He’s protector of Poseidon’ son, who is Percy. You think he’s disabled in the movie – he has these two crutches. You look at him and think that’s his weakness. But that’s really a disguise because they’re in the modern world. We all go to this certain school that is for misfits and people who don’t in… You might think he’s disabled but he’s really his protector. There’s a line in the movie, ‘Just because I’m disabled doesn’t mean I can’t protect you.’”

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