Who plays Dionysus in ‘Percy Jackson & the Olympians’ and where have I seen him before?

The casting for the new Percy Jackson & The Olympians television show is nothing short of perfection, starting with the actor playing the sardonic Mr. D AKA the god of wine, revelry, grape harvest, ecstasy, and theater, Dionysus.

Who plays Mr. D/Dionysus in Disney Plus’ Percy Jackson & The Olympians?

Dionysus is played by none other than the hilariously eccentric Jason Mantzoukas. Seeing a Greek American actor playing a Greek god just scratches an itch we didn’t know we had. The choice to cast the 51-year-old actor in the peculiar role came, in great part, from the mind of the executive producer and director of the first two episodes James Bobin.

In an interview with We Got This Covered, Bobin said Mantzoukas was always who he envisioned playing the role while reading the books, so it was especially helpful that the two were friends when it was time to cast the Camp Half-Blood director. “I hadn’t worked with him for a while. I know him, so he’s Mr. D. in my head,” Bobin revealed, adding that this particular actor/character combo was his favorite among the talent playing Greek gods on the show.

“That is a role I think he was born to play,” the executive producer concluded. We tend to agree, but Mantzoukas’s resume is filled with roles that could give Mr. D a run for his money.

Where you’ve seen Jason Mantzoukas before Percy Jackson & The Olympians

Mantzoukas has been filling our screens with laugh-out-loud performances for 25 years now. He’s perhaps best known for playing the obnoxious Rafi in the FX sitcom The League for five years. Still, although short, his cameos in the likes of Parks and Recreation as the arrogant fragrance-maker Dennis Feinstein and Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Rosa’s unhinged boyfriend Adrian Pimento were just as memorable. On the big screen, he’s been a part of over 20 movies, including 2012’s The Dictator, 2017’s The House, 2018’s The Long Dumb Road, and 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

If, somehow, you haven’t seen Mantzoukas’s face around, chances are you’ve heard his voice. The comedian is also a co-host of the successful podcast How Did This Get Made? about shockingly bad movies and a frequent collaborator in several other radio/audio shows.

He’s also lent his voice to a number of popular animated projects, such as American Dad!, Ralph Breaks the Internet, The Lego Batman Movie, Big Mouth, and a ton of others. He was also the voice of Bee in Apple TV Plus’s Dickinson, just in case you, like me, are one of the few but mighty fans of that show.