BURBANK, CA (July 25, 2024) - At San Diego Comic-Con, Rick Riordan and Disney+ revealed that Daniel Diemer will star as fan-favorite cyclops "Tyson" in the epic adventure series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.”
Diemer joins Walker Scobell (Percy Jackson), Leah Sava Jeffries (Annabeth Chase) and Aryan Simhadri (Grover Underwood) as a series regular. The Disney+ Original series from Disney Branded Television and 20th Television will start filming its second season next week in Vancouver.
Season two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is based on the second installment of Disney Hyperion’s best-selling book series titled “The Sea of Monsters” by award-winning author Rick Riordan.
The Story of Season 2: "The Sea of Monsters"
In the new season, Percy Jackson returns to Camp Half-Blood one year later to find his world turned upside down. His friendship with Annabeth is changing, he learns he has a cyclops for a brother, Grover has gone missing, and camp is under siege from the forces of Kronos.
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Percy’s journey to set things right will take him off the map and into the deadly Sea of Monsters, where a secret fate awaits the son of Poseidon.
Daniel Diemer as Tyson
Diemer stars as Tyson - a young Cyclops who grew up all alone on the streets, and finds it difficult to survive in the human world. Shy and awkward, with a heart almost as big as he is, Tyson soon discovers that Poseidon is his father, which means Percy Jackson is his half-brother… and that Tyson may have finally found a home.
Diemer recently starred in the Hulu limited series “Under the Bridge” based off the critically acclaimed book of the same name and a tragic true story of a missing teen girl in Vancouver in 1997. He will next star in the indie “Thug” opposite Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman for director Hans Petter Moland.
Daniel was recently seen as the lead in the indie “Supercell” opposite Alec Baldwin and Skeet Ulrich and the lead in the film “Little Brother” opposite Phil Ettinger and JK Simmons. Daniel can also be seen in the Netflix series “The Midnight Club” and recently starred as the male lead in the breakout hit Netflix feature “The Half Of It” from producer Anthony Bregman and director Alice Wu. He is a graduate of Victoria Academy of Dramatic Arts in Vancouver.
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Created by Rick Riordan and Jonathan E. Steinberg, season two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is executive produced by Steinberg and Dan Shotz alongside Rick Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, Craig Silverstein, The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Bert Salke, The Gotham Group’s Jeremy Bell and D.J. Goldberg, James Bobin, Jim Rowe, Albert Kim, Jason Ensler and Sarah Watson.
The Magic Behind Tyson's Eye
LOS ANGELES - Daniel Diemer was destined to play the one-eyed cyclops, Tyson, in Season 2 of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Thanks to some cutting-edge tech help, the actor's eyes (both of them) were even used for the mythological monster's giant peeper.
The 6-foot-5-inch star of Netflix's 2020 drama "The Half of It" had his eyes (and eyebrows) scanned "thousands and thousands" of times to create Tyson's eye - and that monster monobrow - through computer-generated imagery for the Disney+ series.
"They're taking that eye straight from me," says Diemer. "This technology uses both my eyes and combines them into one."
After show producers pondered how to effectively render Tyson's can't-miss eye, the famed special effects company Industrial Light & Magic developed the novel ocular approach. No VFX tracking markers are needed.
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"I just act out each scene, and the computer scans my eyes for the look, emotion, and motion, and then transposes that to the one eye," says Diemer, who will continue shooting Season 3 of the series in Vancouver after the Season 2 world promotional tour ends.
"No one's ever done it like this before," executive producer Jonathan E. Steinberg says of the cyclops eye technology. "This solution brings an emotional performance from (Diemer's) two eyes. There are a million cues you're getting from someone's eyes, all happening in one eye here."
While the unibrow is humorous and necessary, the wildly expressive eye gives Tyson that all-seeing emotional punch.
"One eyebrow is inherently less expressive than two, so the performance comes from the eye itself," says executive producer James Bobin, who directed the first two episodes. "The empathy for Tyson is from Daniel and the ILM team."
Why Diemer was destined to play Tyson, the cyclops son of Poseidon
Both Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) and Tyson are the sons of the Greek god Poseidon, making the duo half-brothers. In Homer’s Odyssey, Polyphemus, the Cyclops, is a son of Poseidon, which carries over to the show.
As the fates would have it, Diemer has had a lifelong obsession with Poseidon, as evidenced by his prominent trident necklace, the iconic emblem and weapon of the sea god.
"I've had this for years," says Diemer. "The Greek gods and mythology have been a huge part of my life for so long, and I've loved the 'Percy Jackson' books since I was 13. I even named my personal company Poseidon Entertainment."
Diemer's height and build - and his experience playing a klutzy football player in the coming-of-age Netflix movie "The Half of It" - also helped him embody kind-hearted, lumbering Tyson.
"With one eye, the depth perception is going to be off, so I'm going to move more carefully, especially when moving fast," says Diemer. "It's a fine line to honor the monster with this physicality and also not make it comedic."
Tyson's backstory will be revealed in 'Percy Jackson'
Tyson is Percy's loyal protector everywhere - from high school class to New York City streets, to riding shotgun on his friend's chariot. But cyclops are feared, and no monster is allowed in Camp Half-Blood. Demigod Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries), the daughter of Athena, is particularly distrustful of cyclops.
"In the books, many characters have traumas around cyclops, so Tyson is very much of an outcast," says Diemer.
The once-homeless orphan's backstory will be fleshed out in Season 2.
"The series brings that story to the surface more. He went through some dark years," says Diemer. "Tyson was homeless for like seven years without a dad or mom to protect him. The book talks about scars, and we show them.