Indian-American actor Aryan Simhadri has shot into the spotlight for his portrayal of Grover Underwood, Percy’s best friend and a satyr disguised as a 12-year-old boy, in the Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The 17-year-old chatted with t2 over a video call on hitting pay dirt with such a prestigious project and his big acting dream.

Congratulations on the great reviews for Percy Jackson and the Olympians! What is the kind of feedback that has come your way for your portrayal of Grover Underwood?

It has been great. The people who I wanted to impress the most, like my parents and my close friends, seem to love the show, and that is what matters to me. I am happy that people like it because we put so much work into it. I love it when people write in with their ideas for the next season or guess what could be coming up. I am glad that the viewing community is so interactive about the show.

Grover is kind of timid in the first couple of books. He has Percy’s (played by Walker Scobell) confidence but he is empathetic and knows when to be cautious. But in the show, they have done more with the character and leaned into the fact that he is 24 and has double the life experience that Percy and Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) have. That is easy to forget in the books because he ages half as fast and so it can seem like he is 12. But he is not, he is 24 and he has that maturity about him. I wasn’t sure if people were going to notice it or how they were going to appreciate it. Seeing people notice what they have done with Grover as compared to the books is heartwarming.

Have you been a fan of the Percy Jackson books and films?

Absolutely! Percy Jackson was the second book series I ever read. I read it in third or fourth grade and I remember watching the films in school. I am a big fan of Brandon T. Jackson (who plays Grover in the film franchise) and Logan Lerman (who plays Percy) is one of my favourite actors. I recently rewatched the first film. As an adaptation, there are places where maybe it didn’t get quite close to the books as we have tried to do with the series. But I do like the films.

What was your approach to playing Grover and what were the biggest challenges?

Like I said, it is easy to forget that he is 24. I would feel like I was playing a 12-year-old and our acting coach Andrew had to constantly remind me that he is a grown adult, especially for scenes like the one with Ares (played by Adam Copeland) in Episode 5, which was a new thing that the series added. I was genuinely terrified that day because I was working one-on-one with Adam Copeland who I look up to. Because of how good he was, it made me want to get better and stop myself from reverting to that 12-year-old whose first instinct is to get frightened because there is a part of that in Grover. That is something I worked on a lot to overcome and hopefully, I managed to get that right.

This is the biggest project I have worked on by a long shot and there are a lot of firsts for me. It was my first time working on stunts and also with visual effects. I am fortunate to have worked with some of the best actors in this series.

Were there any pinch-me moments while working on a project as prestigious as this?

Even now, it doesn’t feel real sometimes. This entire past year-and-a-half has been a big pinch-me moment. It didn’t even register that I was filming until I saw Camp Half-Blood for the first time. I was constantly in awe and I would forget that I was contributing to such an incredible project!

What do you love the most about what you do?

I love the craft of it and the feeling that I am getting better at acting. I see a tangible improvement when I can hit a good scene. Every time you hit that, it makes you want to strive for it again. My favourite part about acting is the people I get to meet. I don’t think I could have met all those I have worked with if I was in any other field.

Like I met Adam Copeland, who is a WWE wrestler and a doting father and the stories he tells me are incredible. The stories I have heard from Virginia (Kull, who plays Percy’s mother Sally) about her past experiences have taught me not just about acting but also about life. She genuinely was a mother figure on set to me, Walker and Leah. Then, there were Jason Mantzoukas (as Dionysus) and Lin-Manuel Miranda (as Hermes) who are both role models for me. They were so gracious, kind and funny and being with them was like a masterclass for me.

What made you want to be an actor?

When I started acting, I was too young to even spell ‘career’! I was too young to understand that this is something that I would want to do seriously. I was just kind of doing it for fun because I loved it and I loved getting to meet people. I was a very attention-seeking kid (laughs), so being in an industry where cameras are pointed at us all the time was a dream come true for me. Everything was so exciting for six-year-old Aryan.

My mom put in so much time and effort... she quit her job to take care of me and she couldn’t go back to working because she needed to be constantly ready to talk to my agents or managers or to drive me to Los Angeles. We live in Irvine, which is a couple of hours away from LA, and she would drive me to and fro every day if I had classes or auditions.

When I got to the age where I could realise how much work she was putting in, I was like: ‘I need to match that, I need to make this easier for my parents and give them the confidence that this is something that they can rely on me to do’. That is when I started taking it seriously and also when I started watching a lot of movies with my parents and realised: ‘Oh my God! These guys on screen are so good, I need to like be like them.’

You have just started but do you see a distinct shift in the kind of opportunities that are being offered to actors of colour?

Absolutely! Ten or 15 years ago, any adaptation of Percy Jackson, whether it be in films or TV, would not have cast me. A short little Indian kid is not someone that you genuinely look for as a leading man. When I auditioned for this series, I was 3”2’ and though I was 14, I looked like I was seven! Just the fact that I even got to audition was huge.

I read for the part and it was fun. I ended up sending in a tape and I got a call back. I kept going and I finally booked the part! In the books, Grover doesn’t have a proper physical description. The point of Grover in the books is that anyone can and should be Grover. That is the kind of friend everybody needs. That is what Rick Riordan was going for when he created Grover. That I get to be him as a leading man is incredible. Even more so because it is very easy to think of Indian-American actors as funny or smart or like a geek or a doctor. But things are different now. RRR was at the Oscars. I am so glad that the boundaries are getting thinner.

Did you recently watch anything coming out of India?

The last big one I watched was Pathaan. It is hard not to love that guy (Shah Rukh Khan) and his most recent work has been pretty cool. He is an actor I look up to and I like the MCU thing he is doing with Pathaan and the Tiger films... the Spy Universe thing. I feel like he is the only one who could pull that off in Bollywood.

What is the big dream for you in the next few years?

Sometimes, I see people who are in this career for all the wrong reasons and they haven’t fallen in love with it. I never want to lose the kind of love that I have for acting and I don’t think I ever will. I want to keep working and do as much stuff as I can because half the fun as an actor is just doing stuff that you have never done before.

That is why I decided to do Percy Jackson. It is a story that gets more and more intense and by the time the fifth book arrives, the characters are so different from what they were. In terms of a long-term role, I loved what they did with Spider-Man India in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). If they ever do a live-action adaptation, I would love to play Spider-Man India.