Percy Jackson and the Olympians introduced Clarisse La Rue when the titular character arrived at Camp Half-Blood. She is an older camper and daughter of Ares who bullied Percy since he was the new kid. The character only played a minor role previously, but this season, she will have more of a spotlight.
Executive producer Craig Silverstein talked about the expanded role for Clarisse. He said, “Yeah, Clarisse is an important character for this season, especially because she’s the one who gets the quest. And we wanted to follow Clarisse on that quest and it’s, you know, it led to scenes that we were nervous about just because we were pushing past the template that we had, you know, set, right? Where it’s like, can we open a show without Percy, right in- for a scene?”
In many ways, Clarisse’s journey parallels that of Percy from the first season. Silverstein continued, “[T]hose scenes are coming up and it helps that Clarisse is going to be following in the same footsteps of Percy in terms of getting a quest from the Oracle, a prophecy from the Oracle, you know, and then going out and trying to pick her questmates. But that was something that we knew was important, but we were differently approached with a lot of care and caution.”
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians television adaptation provides different opportunities compared to the books. Whereas the source material is mainly told from Percy’s perspective, Silverstein explained that there are actually many stories happening around the main character and “we wanted to use this medium to expand and capture all of them.” Clarisse’s narrative is one example.
Actress Dior Goodjohn found portraying Clarisse quite challenging, but she also saw she connected with the character on a deeper level. “I think the biggest challenge in that was having to be very honest with myself and where I was at in my life, and realizing that I am going through the same experience that Clarisse is going through in the story and not being afraid to put that on display and put that on camera. I feel like a really fun part and big part for me about being an actor is the fact that you get to shed yourself completely and escape into a completely different world and be an entirely different person.”
She continued, “But when it came to Clarisse’s story this year, it was hitting very close to home in a lot of aspects. And don’t get me wrong, I had an amazing life—I have an amazing life, I have an amazing childhood. Um, but there definitely were some aspects of it and also too in my current- well, like, past tense current, like that was happening while we were filming the show that was very eerily similar.”
In the end, Goodjohn found the entire acting process beneficial. “[I]t was a very therapeutic process having to deal with what was at hand for myself and kind of alchemize that and channel it into Clarisse. So not necessarily any- I mean, of course there were big acting asks. I’ve never been that vulnerable emotionally onscreen before…I think that’s a good way to put it. I’ve never been that vulnerable emotionally onscreen before, so there were big asks for acting, but really, it was more of a self-sacrifice thing that was going on.”
Percy Jackson and the Olympians premieres later today on Disney+.
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