Leah Sava Jeffries talks fast. She's quick — with her wit, her facial expressions, her drive — and chaotically effervescent. It's as if she has her own finger on the upper-right corner of her screen, sending herself into 2x speed. If someone bottled up the magic of being 16 years old, shook it up, and popped the top, Leah's personality would pour out, edible glitter and all.
As we eat lunch in Tribeca, I realize I may have made a mistake by having the young actor sit facing the open restaurant. I drink her in as she tells me about her previous evening in New York City — fangirling over the Scarlet Witch, a.k.a. Elizabeth Olsen, on the flight from LA to New York; being lured in by one of those Times Square street photographers and actually loving the photos — and I realize that she's drinking in the entire restaurant. Her eyes rove under the canopy of her dark brown 'fro, watching everything and everyone. She interrupts herself frequently to apologize for being distracted.
But it's natural, perhaps even comforting. Leah may be Annabeth Chase, the leading lady of the critically acclaimed Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but she's still a teenager whose thoughts sometimes drift into the clouds.
“I'm nervous, but I'm extra excited,” the New Hollywood 2025 honoree says of her Teen Vogue cover shoot, scheduled for the following day. “Recently, I've been really obsessed with Project Runway, America's Next Top Model.” She effortlessly demonstrates the iconic smize, then starts to giggle. “I stutter so bad when I get excited.”
Leah has a lot to be excited about. When we meet in early October, she's only a few weeks removed from speaking at Teen Vogue Summit 2025 and celebrating her sweet sixteen, and a few weeks out from the highly anticipated release of the second season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The second installment in the series, out December 10, will adapt the second novel in Rick Riordan's five-book series, The Sea of Monsters. The show received an early renewal for a third season, which Leah and her costars have already started filming. Right now she's on a filming break, and says she's grateful for the chance to wear her hair outside in its natural state instead of Annabeth's signature braids. “I look different, but I also feel different,” she says, reflecting on her recent milestone birthday.
Leah had three separate celebrations: one with her family at her favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse, where they made her get on a mechanical bull; a formal birthday dinner with all her friends in LA, including fellow young actors Kylie Cantrall, Dara Renee, Janice LeAnn Brown, Akira Akbar, and her Percy costar Charlie Bushnell; and one exclusively with her Percy cast mates before she left the set in Vancouver.
Growth is occurring rapidly in nearly every aspect of Leah's life, in a way that could be overwhelming to some, but not to this young actor. She feels more confident than ever, in both herself and her capabilities as a performer.
She was just 12 years old while filming the first season of Percy Jackson. When asked what advice she would give to that younger version of herself — the one eager to step into battle as the Greek demigod daughter of Athena despite also battling real-world monsters of fandom — she's quick to answer (naturally): “Less is more. And also, it gets better,” Leah says brightly.
She continues, “My first year, I was kind of worried about a lot of things that happened or [what people] think about me…. I felt like I had to do so much to prove that my acting was good, and so much to prove [with] my own acting, period.”
After a thoughtful pause, she jumps in with another word of wisdom for her past self: “Oh, and you also look less chopped in the future.”
Leah Sava Jeffries has always wanted to be an actor. “I started when I was two,” she says. Throughout her 14-year career, she's worked on almost every kind of set: sitcoms, thrillers, musical dramas, children's programming, rom-coms, internationally shot action adventures, and now, full-scale fantasy.
Her older brother Floyd was also a child performer, and having an actor in her family spurred a eureka moment. “I didn't know it was like that,” Leah recalls. “I didn't know you could just go and [act]. I thought you were, like, born an actor.”
Yet, she sort of was. Leah's first breakout role was in Fox's Empire, at four years old. She delivered her few lines from the script, but then started improvising new dialogue so well that creator Lee Daniels decided to keep the cameras rolling.
Leah's parents didn't expect stardom to appear so early in the cards their daughter was dealt, but Leah's hand was a straight flush. “I'm just grateful for everyone's sacrifices they make,” she says, motioning to Floyd, who sits at the table across from us. “Like, he's here with me right now. We've been traveling for the past five months with each other, just us two. And for him to leave his college experience to do that… I just have a family that I'm very grateful for, that loves me so much that I can even do stuff like this.”
Unwavering support from her family is what prepared Leah to masterfully take on the role of Annabeth, a casting decision that made headlines in 2022. In the novels, Annabeth is depicted as a white girl with blonde hair and gray eyes; in the Percy film adaptations of the 2010s, starring Logan Lerman in the titular role, Annabeth was portrayed by Alexandra Daddario, a white actor. When Leah's casting was announced for the television adaptation, she faced a Poseidon-esque tidal wave of rageful racism calling for the part to be recast.
The backlash hit such a crest that Rick Riordan had to issue a statement on his own website condemning the hate. “This post is specifically for those who have a problem with the casting of Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase,” Riordan wrote in the now-archived blog post. “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.”
He declared further, “If you have a problem with this casting, however, take it up with me. You have no one else to blame. Whatever else you take from this post, we should be able to agree that bullying and harassing a child online is inexcusably wrong. As strong as Leah is, as much as we have discussed the potential for this kind of reaction and the intense pressure this role will bring, the negative comments she has received online are out of line. They need to stop. Now.”
Racist trolls meddled with her online presence, reporting her TikTok account until it was banned. “I'm still devastated about that,” Leah says, joking. At the time, she went on Instagram Live with a resilient response to the incident. “That's not gonna let us stop us!” she said with a smile, arms wide.
Three years later, Leah is even more indifferent to the backlash she received. “I honestly did not care much. Literally, I do not care what they say bad about me,” she continues in between bites of pizza, as if we are discussing a rumor on the playground. “I feel like if I'm getting hated on, that's kind of good. Not everyone's going to like you. It's just going to be like that. Now, I'll still love everyone, but not everyone is going to like me, and that's okay.”
Leah's tone is almost bored when discussing the fallout. She rolls her eyes. “Look at how much backlash Halle Bailey got, and she played amazing in The Little Mermaid. She's the sweetest person ever, so it's just like, why would I really listen [to them]?”
Leah points out that seeing other young Black actors, like Bailey and Zendaya, experience similar jabber and hearing stories of her parents' “brave” encounters with racism helped her mentally prepare for a negative reaction to her casting. Her past experiences with bullying in school also helped her build her armor.
“[My family was] like, ‘Leah, it won't just be at school, it'll be all around.' But I was born in a Christian household, so if it wasn't for me, God wouldn't have gave it to me,” she says with sincerity. “We just prayed about it. ‘Even if the destruction comes first, there will be blessings right after it.' I knew that even if I were to come onto the show and get a bunch of hate, the amount of love and the blessings that were behind that door were a gajillion times bigger — and it was true.”
Also, she says freely, “I forgive anyone who was saying the bad stuff and everything. It's kind of hilarious now, 'cause I was actually more prepared to hear all the crazy stuff [than I was to play the part]….”
She continues, giggling: “I had my suit of armor on. I was like, ‘I'm ready to go to war!' But then actually walking in that room and being like… ‘All right, what's Annabeth's line?'”
Be that as it may, “unprepared” is not likely to be a word anyone would use to describe Leah's performance in season one as the strong-headed demigod. She is fiercely compelling as Annabeth, wielding incredible chemistry with her lead costars Walker Scobell and Aryan Simhadri.
During the first season, Becky Riordan, the author's wife and a producer on the show, told Teen Vogue, “Leah just thinks of herself as Annabeth now.” Leah agrees, noting that her personal evolution and Annabeth's character development across the upcoming second and third seasons have helped her make mental demarcations for where she begins and Annabeth ends.
According to Leah, Annabeth's arc involves a lot of “growing up” emotionally, in a way that brings her closer to Leah's own emotional maturity. “Not in that way of growing up too fast, but in a way of, like, the industry has already made me grow up,” she explains.
“I had to go from someone that was very closed in on herself and doesn't want to open up, and then switch to someone that was very much vulnerable and cares,” Leah adds, describing Annabeth's inner expansion.
The storylines also evolve as Percy, Annabeth, and Grover start to take on bigger quests and carry heavier burdens. In the first two episodes of the second season, Annabeth is forced to navigate a barrage of conflicting emotions when she is trusted with a dangerous secret disguised as betrayal. “A lot of the second season is more — instead of ‘I'm doing this for survival,' it's ‘I'm doing this for the truth,'” Leah teases.
The complexity of the next two seasons has been a challenge for the young actors, but Leah says they're giving it their all: blood, sweat, and literal tears. “I cried on set one day because I couldn't get this one part right,” she remembers. “It was in the second season, I'm having a really heartfelt moment, but they were asking for a lot. I was trying to fight really hard to get it, though. They were asking for determination, but bravery, but also cry, but also fear, but also blame it on someone else, but also, ‘I know I'm going to make it,' but also, ‘We're going to die.' It's hard!”
One of the pitfalls for a series led by young actors is how fast the stars grow up. Production on Percy has hoped to avoid this by filming consecutively with as few interruptions as possible (hence, the early renewal for season three). But some time did pass while they waited their season-two renewal, and Leah thinks it was actually for the best.
“Everyone had grown [physically], but also mentally,” she says of the second season. “So I feel like our acting changed, but also just the way we take on the roles…. We're locked in this season.”
The source material for season two is heavy on the water, as the gang journeys to the Sea of Monsters to save Grover from mysterious peril. It required “hardcore” stunts and, of course, perfect hair. Annabeth's box braids from season one have been praised by the Black community for how the look was maintained throughout the entire season. Dozens of Black actors, spanning generations, have repeatedly spoken out about the lack of styling knowledge for textured hair and the lack of Black hairstylists on set and how it impacts their performance (and their pockets). Too often, Black talent is left to care for their hair on their own.
Percy, then, is a bright spot in the industry. Leah previously told Essence that the Percy hair-and-makeup trailers are culturally and ethnically diverse, noting that sometimes she had Black and non-Black stylists working on her hair: “I actually like that they were all different because I think it's important for people who are not Black to know how to do my hair, too,” Leah told the magazine in 2023.
For season two, Leah has been able to wear knotless boho braids that provide the perfect texture for continuity in countless water scenes, despite a few tangles. “In the first season, I had only one scene with water, and that was Waterland. You're filming it in different angles 30 times, your hair's being dumped in water a thousand times,” Leah recalls. “I had to get my hair re-braided three days later. Imagine that, [but] a gajillion times worse [for season two]. We're filming in water every single day, and my hair was going through it. Luckily, it matched…. If my natural hair was sticking out a little bit, you couldn't tell because it would curl up with the human boho hair that was sticking out of it.”
Those braids will be seen from hundreds of angles under hundreds of filters after season two premieres in December, as the PJO fandom will leap at all the new material to make fan-cams with. But the magnitude of the show's fandom doesn't intimidate Leah. “I'm very happy to be well known. If you're not in a show that has a big fandom, it takes you a while to really get noticed like that,” she says.
She continues, “No matter how many shows you've been on, everyone could love it, but everyone that could be watching it is adults. So not everyone's going to be editing you [into viral fan-cams] and all that stuff.”
The idea of growing up with a fanbase she's built over the years of her career excites her. Leah shies away from the word “fans,” preferring to use “friends” instead. “I feel like ‘fans' puts them in a category of, like, they're under us. I feel like everyone is the exact same; I feel like people are just more well known. Everyone has their own unique story. Just because you might not be on a TV screen, doesn't mean you're less than someone else.”
Leah currently taps into fan discourse as somewhat of a craft touchstone. “It's training me in the ways of acting. I got to see when people said ‘good,' or maybe critiqued me or something, and it's really helped me now,” she explains. “So that's why I'm excited for them to see the second season, because I feel like I worked really hard.”
Fandom does have its surreal moments — like seeing yourself on your friend's FYP organically or coming up in Pinterest searches for natural hair — but Leah says it can also get a little sticky. There's the whole parasocial relationship thing, after all. Says Leah, fans can sometimes try to spin or change a narrative by making assumptions or adding false context to, for example, a video. She says this happens often with videos of her and her cast mates, where fans will try to infer whether they “hate each other” in real life or if Percabeth (the 'ship name for Walker and Leah's characters) may have some validity offscreen.
“It's so funny because me and Walker, we look at it and we're joking around, we're like, ‘Bro, look at this one. This is crazy.' We honestly laugh at it with each other because of how far from what it actually [is] in that moment,” says Leah.
“Me and Walker, we have to be mindful of how people are going to take certain scenes and stuff. When you're filming, you get so much into character…. We tend to go above and beyond. It's just how we do it. Our bonding when it comes to the acting is really good, which tends to make the acting in all those Percabeth scenes come off so natural. We're really proud of our work.”
The second season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians has tons of surprises and reveals in store for audiences, including backstory flashbacks of young Annabeth. (Young Annabeth will be played by Leah's real-life cousin Marissa Winans, of the Winans family. Leah says she briefly coached Marissa for her audition over FaceTime, telling her, “Usually, I put all my acting into my eyebrows.”)
But, you may ask, how can there be surprises in store when the show is based on a book? “I want the fans to know that they don't know everything,” Leah teases mischievously, raising an eyebrow. “Reading the books, they're like, ‘Oh, I already know what's going to happen.' Do you? Maybe let's think again, shall we?”
Although she can't say much about Percy season three, Leah can gush about what she's filmed. “Oh my gosh, it's so good. The seasons get better and better and better. Stranger Things, you know how they evolved? It was already good in the first season, but you know how it just keeps growing and growing? It's like that. We're growing, and not just growing in height and looks, but we're growing in our acting, our work — and the way it's written is so good.”
Leah won the 2024 NAACP Image Award for outstanding performance by a youth, which she describes as “an actually crazy” moment. But not because she took home the award — which she won again earlier this year — but because she couldn't believe she was in the same room as Damson Idris.
There's one other star she's dying to meet, an actor she calls her North Star and ultimate-possibility model: Zendaya. “And when I meet her, I'll be very respectful,” Leah promises with grave seriousness. “I would be very respectful, like ask her, ‘How are you doing?' and stuff. ‘Very nice to meet you.'”
Zendaya has been Leah's celeb heroine since her K.C. Undercover days on Disney. “It will never not be Zendaya,” says Leah. “I'm obsessed with her.” (Not in a “crazy” way, she makes sure to clarify.)
“Even if I don't get a photo," Leah adds, "I just really would like to talk to her and chat with her, and get some pointers. 'Cause I've been watching Rue [from Euphoria] on TV to really get a perspective into that stuff. Even Zapped. Zapped was one of the best movies that I love with Zendaya.”
Zendaya's accomplishments and contributions to Black female representation onscreen inspire Leah in a way that takes a bit of pressure off her own shoulders to achieve similar ambitions. “It's exciting, but it is a lot to take on,” Leah says of the expectations that come with representation. “But I feel like I'm not the first person in history [to accomplish it]. It was a lot at first, because everyone just kept saying it over and over again. And I'm like, Oh, geez… I'm kind of scared now. Because I don't want people looking at me and being like, ‘You're going to be the next role model!' And then I'm not. But it's a dream come true, and it's something I'm really happy about because I can almost look at myself [for inspiration too].”
Other Black women entertainers she looks up to include Taylor Russell, Ayo Edebiri, and Quinta Brunson. “And honestly, okay, this is not a girl and they're not Black, but I would say [Adolescence star] Owen Cooper [too],” Leah adds. “We don't know each other, but it's just the fact that he's the first kid to win the Emmys. I'm so proud of him. I'm very, very happy for him…. To already win something like that, in the adult one, not the children's one…? Hopefully, one day, we can both be up there and be like, ‘Y'all, look what we got.'”
Awards are definitely on Leah's mind as she continues to progress as an actor. They're one of the many bullet points on her 10-year plan. “I really want to win at least one Oscar by then. And this is very possible: one Oscar and two Emmys. It's very hard to do that — I know it is very hard to do that. I'm just saying, okay?!”
Other bullet points waiting to be ticked off include giving back to the homeless, buying her mom a house, getting everyone in her family their dream car, traveling the world, and getting married. “Me and my best friend, he's a guy, we made a deal,” she says with a laugh. “We were like, 'If we can't find a husband and wife by the age of 28, we're going to get married to each other.' But honestly, it's kind of hard now because everything is more expensive. To pay for a wedding, you're paying like $30,000. At this point, just marry me at Krispy Kreme. As long as I'm with you.”
Leah also wants to play a superhero, as many do. She wants to play a character with white hair, but more than the white streak that Annabeth will eventually develop after the show depicts the events of The Titan's Curse. (“I'm really excited to play that part out,” she says.) But more than anything, she wants to expand her acting portfolio: “Deeper parts,” she says. “I really want people to see how deep I can go.”
Leah Sava Jeffries has never been afraid of failing. Instead, she's afraid of being stagnant and losing her humility. “I'm afraid of staying in the same place. I don't want to fail other auditions and stay in the same [genre]... [and] being full of myself, I don't want to get too many things and be like, ‘Okay, gimme this, gimme that.' I don't want to do that. I still want to learn. If I get everything handed to me like that, I'm never going to learn.”
Leah's breakout role as the daughter of Athena, the goddess of reason, wisdom, and war, is not what makes her fearless; what makes her fearless and resilient and poised for success is the unshakable faith and sense of self she keeps at her core. And when your job is rubbing shoulders with mythological gods all day long, nothing is really impossible.
“One more thing,” Leah says, still working her 10-year plan around in her mind. “If my singing gets better later on, I would love to, in like, 30 years, when I'm 45, win a Tony Award. You gotta think of a plan: If I get a Tony, I can get a Grammy too.” Watch out world, Leah Sava Jeffries is coming.
Photo Credits
Photographer Angalis Field
Photo Assistant I/Digi Tech Jacob Holler
Lighting Director Alex Johnstone
Stylist Ali Claire Marino
Stylist Assistant Malu Registre
Stylist Assistant Luna Johnson
Tailor Hailey Desjardins
Prop Stylist Maisie Sattler
Prop Assistant Aisha Gunnell
Makeup Artist Tiffany Patton at Paradis
Hair Stylist Sergio Estrada at Paradis
Makeup Assistant Sebastian Castro
Manicurist Rita Remark at Bryant Bantry Agency
Retoucher Alberto Maro
Producer Caroline Hughes
Production Coordinator TJ O'Donnell
Production Assistant Elise Snider
Art and Design Director Emily Zirimis
Global Fashion Director Tchesmeni Leonard
Senior Designer Liz Coulbourn
Associate Fashion Editor Samantha Gasmer
Associate Visuals Editor Bea Oyster
Assistant Fashion Editor Crystal Okonkwo
Editorial Credits
Editor-in-Chief Versha Sharma
Features Director Brittney McNamara
Associate Entertainment Director Eugene Shevertalov
Associate Culture Director P. Claire Dodson
Culture Editor Kaitlyn McNab
Style Director Alyssa Hardy
Talent Manager Paige Garbarini
Senior Social Media Manager Jillian Selzer
Editor-at-Large Sara Delgado
Beauty Editor Donya Momenian
Editorial Assistant Skyli Alvarez
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