Pop-Culturalist.com

Aria Mia Loberti and Louis Hofmann are two of the stars of Netflix’s All the Light We Cannot See.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See is a groundbreaking limited series that follows the story of Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti), a blind French girl and her father, Daniel LeBlanc (Mark Ruffalo), who flee German-occupied Paris with a legendary diamond to keep it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. Relentlessly pursued by a cruel Gestapo officer who seeks to possess the stone for his own selfish means, Marie-Laure and Daniel soon find refuge in St. Malo, where they take up residence with a reclusive uncle who transmits clandestine radio broadcasts as part of the resistance. Yet here in this once-idyllic seaside city, Marie-Laure’s path also collides inexorably with the unlikeliest of kindred spirits: Werner (Louis Hofmann), a brilliant teenager enlisted by Hitler’s regime to track down illegal broadcasts, who instead shares a secret connection to Marie-Laure as well as her faith in humanity and the possibility of hope.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Aria and Louis about All the Light We Cannot See, their nuanced performances, bringing authentic representation to the screen, the role music played in their preparation, and more.

PC: Aria, this book has held such a special place in your heart. As you brought Marie to life, what’s one thing that you wanted to make sure was translated from page to screen? What’s something new that you brought to her?
Aria: I’m so glad you asked that question because you can’t fit 600 pages into any length of film. I wanted to bring the narrative inside her head to life as best as I could through my actions. But there’s this taxonomic quality and studious nature that I wanted to make sure was conveyed, even though it never really comes up in the script because there’s this relationship between her and Hugh Laurie’s character Etienne that exists in the pages of the book. They connect through The Voyage of the Beagle and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He spends so much time reading to her and her to him. They can overcome their own challenges and find a little bit of peace in the sound of their own voices telling these stories.

I wanted to bring that texture and nuance to this character. It was really a challenge for me because I’m a first-timer. It was my first audition and my first part, so I spent a lot of time with the book, which as you said, is very special to me. I really dove into it as best I could. I pulled out passages and coordinated them with lines from the script and anything that I thought I could bring to those moments of silence that were in the book. I had spreadsheets. [laughs] I wrote fan fiction and diary entries from her perspective. I created a playlist which I know Louis also did, but in a very different way for his preparation.

I coordinated senses and sounds with the playlist and textures of fabric when I got fitted for my wardrobe. All of these components helped me bring this person to life. I’m really grateful that there was such rich source material to pull from because it helped me feel what a reader would take away from this character, what sits deepest with them, and how can I bring that to life. It was a really extraordinary way to bind together every sense and that physicality and emotionality to such an extraordinary person.

PC: You’re incredible in this. Louis, your character is grappling with a lot of guilt and grief for the things that he’s had to do to survive, and you’ve brought so much nuance to that. As an actor, how did you create the space for yourself to dive into that arc?
Louis: I also read the book. I hadn’t read the book before I got the part, I must admit. But I did read it after I landed the role. It was really helpful because you can’t go into that much detail when writing a script, but you had this whole richness of this world on those pages in the book. I did something similar to Aria where I collected as much as possible about this character to create this world, and I also really used music. It helped me so much to tap into this character.

I did that with another film recently. I didn’t really understand what the vibe of the film was going to be and then the director showed me a few music pieces, and it all clicked. I was like, “Ah, that’s the vibe that we’re trying to create.” Adding music pieces really helps me tap into any character. But that guilt, the sadness from that guilt, and that constant fight that he has with his moral compass, and the morally wrong decisions that he makes, but also wanting to keep his soul clean were all the things that helped me create this wonderful, three-dimensional character. I guess I’m a little attached to traumatized, sad, guilt-feeling characters. [laughs] I’m really grateful to have those opportunities because they’re challenging but also so fun to play as well.

PC: Aria, it was really important to Steven [Knight] that you were a creative partner and equal throughout this experience. What were some of those early conversations that you had with about what you hope to accomplish as an artist as you brought this beloved character and her lived environment to the screen?
Aria: I felt so grateful and honored that he respected me enough to do that because I know that doesn’t always happen. I’ve since learned that that’s not always the case, even if you’re remarkably experienced. You don’t always have that connection with the director. I was really, really grateful that he allowed me to take a lot of time to express myself and my feelings for the story to him, what I wanted to achieve emotionally, but also what we wanted to convey in terms of her blindness because that’s the first time that it’s being authentically represented on screen.

A lot of people exist in this headspace of stigmas for what a blind character would look like and how they would behave. They think that blindness is something that’s visible and it’s not. I’m not sure where that misconception came from, but 100 years of film have ingrained that in our society and in our culture. So they would believe that a blind character would maybe look off into the distance. They would never look at who they’re speaking to. Their expressions would be vacant and maybe they’d be a bit vapid and they would shuffle their feet in, their palms would be out, and all of these things are not true. Unless you have a facial difference, your blindness would not be observable through the expressiveness of your face or the way you connect or made “eye contact” with other people.

I don’t want to speak for Shawn, but that’s something that I’m not sure he knew. I do know that he knew that doing this authentically was going to make a huge difference. But I don’t think that he knew that in that way. So a lot of the conversations became about how can we use her hands, her feet, and other physical mannerisms in her body to demonstrate how she’s navigating the world with enhanced senses in the absence of another sense.

For me, I wanted to make sure that this was done with a certain mindfulness for the condition in which she’s living. There’s a historical component to this. The Nazis persecuted people with disabilities very violently. That’s not part of the story, but it would be part of the bearing of the character. We had these conversations right up until the final day of filming, and basically how this would be demonstrated with the knowledge that an audience might find really jarring to see blindness presented as something that is unrecognizable until you bring in a circumstance that makes it so. Shawn was an incredible person to work with. I’m so proud of him for doing this work so beautifully and with so much honesty. I’m grateful that he took the time to listen and allowed me to be the voice of a group of people who have not even been underrepresented but have been completely unrepresented in the past. I’m very grateful for him.

PC: Great answer. Louis, Aria arrived to set three weeks before she started filming and it gave you the opportunity to show her everything that you love about the craft and this industry having grown up in it. Who were the mentors in your own life who have done that for you? Did you gain a deeper appreciation for your own craft, having now been able to do that for somebody else?
Louis: When I was younger, I was searching for someone to look up to and be my mentor. There was this German actor named Benno Fürmann who I did my first big film with, Tom Sawyer, and then another film a year later. He mentored me, which I was really, really grateful for. So I knew that I wanted to be there for Aria when she came in as she shadowed Shawn. It brought me a lot of joy because she picked up on everything so quickly.

Aria: I really tried to soak everything in.

Louis: She was so eager to learn, and she really soaked it all in. It was amazing to see. It took me a few years to get a sense for it, and she understood it all in a few weeks.

Aria: I was kind of thrown in.

Louis: You were. There was no other way. [laughs] But I think that’s something that really connected us and helped make that connection transcend the screen, even before they meet, which was very, very important to us and the story of both of them.

Make sure to follow Aria (Instagram) and Louis (Instagram). Stream All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix today.