Percy Jackson star Adam Copeland says Ares ‘would’ve made one heck of a wrestler’

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, season 1, episode 5, "A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers."

Adam Copeland took a break from wrestling to play the god of war on Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but the distance between Edge and Ares is shorter than it looks. In this week’s episode of the Disney+ series (based on the books by Rick Riordan), Copeland’s Ares shows up rocking a long leather duster not too different from the one Copeland wears when he enters the wrestling ring. 

“He’s supposed to be the god of war, so he’s going to be a god of physicality,” Copeland tells EW. “My other gig is very much based on physical theater, so they definitely coincide. I think Ares would’ve made one heck of a wrestler. There’s a moment where he ups the intensity, and I was definitely dipping into my wrestling playbook for that.” 

The physical overlap between Copeland’s wrestler persona and the war god was definitely what Percy Jackson pilot director James Bobin had in mind when he was casting the series. 

“Because of who he is and his physical presence, he’s a perfect fit,” Bobin says of Copeland. “Ares is kind of lumbering, he always has been in Rick’s books. Adam is a very intelligent actor, and he is very good at being that guy. That’s his job. So on screen he’s like the leather jacket version of that character, he really brings it.”

But beyond Ares’ physical presence, Copeland worked to find humor in the god of war. He spends most of his first appearance bantering with Grover (Aryan Simhadri) over cheeseburgers. 

“That was my way in because if he’s just a big, bad, angry god, then eventually that's going to get old,” Copeland says. “What I loved about the show’s writing is that it allowed me to look for layers. For me, the key really was finding those comedic beats. Once I found those, I was like, ‘Okay, I know this guy.’” 

You probably know him too. After all, Copeland’s Ares is even introduced while getting in a furious argument with someone on Twitter. It’s a clever bit of adaptation from the show’s writers, who are updating a book first published before “social media” was a household phrase. But it’s true to the style of Riordan, who has never hesitated to incorporate modern technology into his mythological stories and even made delivery apps a humorous element of last year’s Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods. 

“He’s like, ‘Okay, if I can't get a full-blown war, let's see, where else can I try and get some hackles up?’” Copeland laughs.  

Like other adult actors on Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Copeland was first introduced to the series through his children. With a smile, he talks about how he now watches new episodes of the all-ages series alongside his whole family, with his daughter eagerly noting changes from the book (so she should have a field day with Ares’ tweets). 

Ares has a different parental style. The very fact that we never see him alongside his daughter Clarisse (Dior Goodjohn) speaks volumes about their relationship — or lack thereof. 

“I think Ares is not a good father, and you see that in how Clarisse acts out,” Copeland says. “If you want to go even deeper, it’s probably because he didn’t have the best dad, and he’s just going with what he knows, which I think a lot of people can relate to. I love how the gods are so flawed. It’d be easy to write them as these omnipotent beings, but they’re not. They have insecurities and jealousies; they’re very human.”

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