(Toronto) Adapting a beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel into a Netflix series could be a daunting task, but Canadian director and producer Shawn Levy says bringing All the Light We Cannot See (All the light we can’t see) on screen was not difficult for a simple reason: he is a fervent admirer of the book.
“From the beginning, I approached this material with respect. But not so much respect that I would not be ready to change things so that this new format breathes on the screen,” he confided in an interview in September, after two episodes of the series had been presented premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Anthony Doerr’s novel – set during World War II – tells the parallel stories of a young blind French girl Marie-Laure, who joins the resistance to the Nazi occupation, and the German teenager Werner, keen on radio technology, recruited by the Nazis to track illegal broadcasts. The book has been a hit with readers and critics since its first publication in 2014, selling more than 15 million copies worldwide and winning numerous literary awards, including the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Shawn Levy, a Montreal native whose background includes science fiction film production Arrival in 2016 and the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, asserts that Doerr is a novelist “who understands the shift in medium (and) has not tried to overcontrol the process too preciously.” »
The four episodes of All the Light We Cannot See (the name of the novel in English) were written by Steven Knight, creator of the BBC series Peaky Blinders and Levy said it was clear from the start of their collaboration that Knight understood the novel in the same way.
“We have a book that means so much to millions of people,” he said. I wanted the soul of the book to be captured. I wanted to do well for these characters who are, in my heart, emblematic. »
Newcomer in lead role
PHOTO CHRIS PIZZELLO, INVISION ARCHIVES/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shawn Levy is a Montreal native whose background includes science fiction film production Arrival in 2016 and the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.
Newcomer Aria Mia Loberti, who plays teenager Marie-Laure, stood out among “hundreds and hundreds” of auditions with blind and visually impaired actresses.
Loberti, an American academic, had never acted or even auditioned for a role before, according to Levy.
“Aria is unique,” he emphasized.
Although she initially knew nothing about working on set, Levy recounted that Loberti told her that she wanted to “be great” and that he could be frank in his comments.
“It’s quite incredible to work with an actress who tells you straight away that she is not fragile, that she wants frankness and that she aspires to the same thing as you, that is -say excellence. »
Levy said that Loberti, in turn, taught him and others how to give the character of Marie-Laure “an authenticity” by mentioning when the script did not accurately depict the life of a blind person. . For example, Loberti told her that Marie-Laure would not move around her own house with a cane, because it is a space she knows intimately.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NETFLIX
All the Light We Cannot See
Loberti has been described as one of TIFF’s rising stars, but she did not do an interview alongside Levy to promote the series at the festival, due to the ongoing Hollywood actors’ strike.
Blindness is “the last thing Marie-Laure thinks about and it’s probably the least relevant part of her identity, but it’s the way she explores and feels the world around her”, Loberti argued in press notes provided by Netflix.
Directing young actors
The main cast is rounded out by Louis Hofmann – who starred in the German Netflix sci-fi series Dark – as Werner, Mark Ruffalo as Marie-Laure’s father Daniel, and Hugh Laurie as Marie-Laure’s great-uncle Étienne. Levy also cast a blind girl from Wales, Nell Sutton, to play the younger version of Marie-Laure.
Directing young actors alongside seasoned veterans is nothing new for Levy, who has also contributed to the films Cheaper by the Dozen and the film franchise Night at the Museum.
He says his role as a father of four has helped him work well with young artists over the years.
All the Light We Cannot See will premiere Thursday on Netflix.