Metro Detroit girl, 14, stars in eagerly awaited 'Percy Jackson' series on Disney+

Leah Sava Jeffries says she barely remembers acting at age 5 on the Fox hit prime-time soap “Empire.” Her parents and older brother tell her funny stories about things that happened on the set, but she herself doesn’t recall much about filming several episodes.

When you’re co-starring with Oscar nominees as a kindergartner, it’s easy to forget the details. Years afterward, says Jeffries: “I remember somebody was saying, ‘I wish I could meet Taraji P. Henson.’ And I (said), ‘Yeah, me too, bro!’ And I was like, wait a minute, I don’t know why I’m wishing about it because I did!”

The 14-year-old metro Detroiter currently is back in the spotlight for a whole different reason, and this time, she's savoring the chance to make new memories. Jeffries is one of the three young stars of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” a new Disney+ adaptation of Rick Riordan’s blockbuster young-adult book series that premiered Tuesday.

The series follows Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) as he discovers he is a demigod and begins a perilous cross-country journey that involves clearing accusations that he stole Zeus’ lightning bolt and encountering an array of gods and monsters from Greek mythology. The quest begins at Camp Half-Blood, a school of sorts for demigods where Percy meets two other students who will help him: Grover (Aryan Simhadri), a forest satyr who is a half human and half animal, and Annabeth (Jeffries), demigod daughter of the warrior goddess Athena.

The story of self-discovery and friendship is about finding your place in a world that makes you feel like an outsider. It's poised to become the latest streaming smash for Disney+ if glowing early reviews and advance fan excitement are any measure.

Just 10 days after the trailer for the eight-episode first season arrived in mid-November, it reached an enormous 84 million views, which astounds Jeffries. Speaking by phone during a busy press day, she says with authentic teen enthusiasm: ”I cannot believe in 10 days, though, that is crazy! I’m so shocked and I’m so grateful and I’m so blessed. I wouldn’t be here, obviously if it wasn’t for God, if it wasn’t for my mother, my father, my brother, even my friends and stuff. After seeing how far ‘Percy Jackson’ has come and the whole show and everything, really, I’m suuuper excited.”

Jeffries deserves to celebrate the online outpouring of interest, especially as she had to deal with the ugly side of the web during the beginning of her “Percy Jackson” experience.

In 2022, when her casting was announced, she faced racist backlash as a young Black actress taking on a character described as white and blond in the books by Riordan. With straightforward grace, Jeffries created an Instagram Live post that thanked her fans and promised she would stay strong. “To whoever is hating, stop doing that!,” she said in it. “Like, I know you think that’s going to hurt me though. It’s not. You’re just wasting time.”

Riordan immediately denounced the hate aimed at Jeffries, stating on his blog, “The response to the casting of Leah has been overwhelmingly positive and joyous, as it should be. Leah brings so much energy and enthusiasm to this role, so much of Annabeth’s strength. She will be a role model for new generations of girls who will see in her the kind of hero they want to be."

Condemning the bullying and harassing of someone who was 12 at the time, Riordan told those attacking the casting to “take it up with me.” In no uncertain terms, he described searching for the best actors for the lead roles during a yearlong process and posted: “This trio is the best. Leah Jeffries is Annabeth Chase."

Riordan has continued his strong support of Jeffries, while she has consistently maintained an upbeat attitude. “When they cast me as Annabeth, I knew there was going to be controversy about it and stuff, but I decided to take that negativeness and put it as a positive thing to me,” she says now, stressing that the backlash “got me for 10 seconds, then I was like, 'Wait, I can’t let that happen.' I put it away.”

She shares some advice that Riordan gave her. “He said, ‘Remember, I chose you.’ I just took that as such a good thing. … Coming from the creator of all of this, the start of everything, him telling me that means a lot.”

Jeffries essentially has been getting rave reviews from industry insiders for as long as she has been in front of camera. A child model for brands like the popular Carol’s Daughter beauty line, she impressed “Empire" casting director Claire Simon, who told the Free Press in 2015 that Jeffries was supposed to be in only a couple of episodes as a character named Lola. But Jeffries gave such a good performance Lola returned for several more appearances.

"Besides the fact that she is absolutely adorable, she had this amazingly charismatic personality," Simon said at the time.

Jeffries went on to land roles in the 2018-19 Fox comedy “Rel” (where she played Lil Rel Howery’s daughter) and 2018’s “Faith Under Fire,” a TV movie directed by Detroit native Vondie Curtis-Hall. “I feel like that was my first time knowing that it does not take a day to film a movie,” says Jeffries, explaining how she used to think as a kid that a one- or two-hour project took only one or two days to make. “The way I figured it out was when they were like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been filming for five months now.’ I was like: ‘How long is your movie? Two years?’”

In 2022, Jeffries played one of Idris Elba’s daughters in the action thriller “Beast,” which was about a terrifying, out-of-control lion. “When I met him, I’ve never seen someone be so nice before,” she says of Elba, who helped distract her from feeling nervous. “When we started filming, on the first day, I was kind of worried because the first day of filming was screaming and crying and stuff. ... He just made all these jokes and rapped and freestyled in front of my face.”

Jeffries was in the seventh grade at Novi Middle School when she was cast in “Percy Jackson.” Back then, the school’s principal, Robert Baker, described her as someone who has "a kind smile on her face all the time, a presence in the hallways that people gravitate to, someone who cares a lot about her friends." Baker also cited her “very strong focus on what it takes to achieve her goals.”

Since then, Jeffries has been busy preparing for her part in “Percy Jackson” and filming in Vancouver, where the cast — which includes stars like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Detroiter Glynn Turman and the late actor Lance Reddick, in one of his final roles — dealt with the combination of high temperatures and colder-weather costumes. As Jeffries told Entertainment Weekly, she was wearing armor for a scene when a spider crawled inside it. “It literally looked like a poisonous spider. It was big and black. I felt something tickling me, and I looked down as its head was going right up into my arm guard. I was about to cry. That was really bad.”

But it takes more than spiders to daunt her — or Annabeth. Jeffries describes being in “Percy Jackson” as “a once-in-a-lifetime chance” that involved new challenges.

“Playing a person who has these powers is amazing because you get to try all these things out that you wouldn’t really do if you were playing a normal person. I love playing Annabeth because of how she can just go invisible with her hat and how she’s the best sword fighter. All the stunts that they trained for to do this, it excited me because I get to do something really new.”

Though she has traveled to New York City and London recently for glamorous premiere events, Jeffries says she misses being back in southeast Michigan, particularly at this time of year. “I love California, too, but I really miss Michigan, especially the snow because I love the snow, of course.”

Although she is bubbly when she talks about hanging out with her family during her time off and revealing items on her Christmas list (some Lululemon gear is in the mix), she takes her acting seriously. “I feel like I’ve been wanting to be an actress since I was so young. ... I take it seriously in a fun way.”

Says Jeffries: “I definitely think being an actor is something I would want to do for a long time”

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.

'Percy Jackson and the Olympians'

Rated TV-PG

First two episodes now on Disney+ (with first episode also on Hulu). Additional episodes arrive on Tuesdays through Jan. 30.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Percy Jackson' series on Disney+ features young metro Detroiter