Marie-Laure is a young blind French woman who flees Nazi-occupied Paris with her father with a valuable and powerful diamond. They both take refuge in the house of Marie’s great-uncle, a war veteran and member of the French resistance who secretly sends radio broadcasts. Werner is a German soldier trained to track illegal radio broadcasts. A shortwave transmitter will connect the two young people in occupied France during World War II. His story of survival is told in “The Light You Can’t See,” the four-part Netflix miniseries that adapts the novel that won Anthony Doerr the 2015 Pulitzer Prize.
Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) is responsible for adapting this story about the power of connection and human resilience. For director Shawn Levy, director of comedies like “Night at the Museum,” action films like “Free Guy” and “The Adam Project” and one of the main directors of the series “Stranger Things,” this was his first experience in a period drama. “I read the book for pleasure and found it captivating, beautiful and full of ideas and emotions. “I loved the opportunity to do something visually luxurious, but also to tell a very emotional character story with ideas that I could identify with,” explained the director in an interview with EL PAÍS via video call at the end of August.
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For a story set in World War II, one of the most difficult things for Levy was to believably portray the time and space in which the action takes place. “It required more research and pre-production work. “I’m doing Stranger Things, which is also a historical series, but it’s easier because I lived in the eighties, but not in Europe in the thirties and forties,” he summarizes. The series depicts the arrival of the Nazis in Paris and Saint-Malo as the German army is about to cross the walls. Although The Light You Can’t See is not a war series, the war is very present. “It’s a cliché and every director will tell you the same thing, but it’s a lot of fun for a director to paint in a huge field. The visual effects and spectacle offered to recreate war are gigantic. “It allowed me to paint with big brushstrokes, but it also forces you to recreate things in a way that respects the story,” explains the director.
German actor Louis Hofmann plays Werner in “The Light You Can’t See”.KATALIN VERMES/NETFLIX
An integral part of the series are its characters and the actors responsible for bringing them to the screen. For the lead role of Marie-Laure, Levy was looking for actresses, a girl and a young woman, who were blind or had significant visual impairment. “It seemed to me that it was ethically right to let blind people portray their own experiences, and it seemed to me that it would improve the series. There are many films and series with people simulating disability and sometimes it’s okay for it to be that way, historically it was the norm. “But I found these two girls fascinating and very talented, and I knew they would bring authenticity to the experience of blindness in a visceral and profound way that would enrich the series,” says Levy.
To find Marie-Laure, the series launched an open global casting call. The teacher who taught American Aria Mia Loberti how to use a cane heard about the call and thought her former student might fit the role. Loberti earned a doctorate in ancient rhetoric and had no experience as an actress. Levy remembers how the young woman appeared in her grandmother’s clothing and acquired an “impeccable” British accent. “He has the intelligence and inner strength that fits the character. She still wasn’t particularly good at acting, but she had the right instincts and I could see that she wanted to improve and could work on it. That’s why I gave him the role,” Levy recalls. For the character in her childhood, they chose the also inexperienced Nell Sutton, a Welsh girl with congenital glaucoma who was only seven years old at the time the series was filmed.
Director Shawn Levy gives instructions to little Nell Sutton in the presence of Mark Ruffalo during the filming of “The Light You Can’t See.”TIMEA SAGHY/NETFLIX
Aria Mia Loberti began filming a month before her scenes began filming so she could get used to life on set, a room that is usually full of cables, cameras and people milling around. The location was adapted to Loberti and Sutton’s needs and they had an accessibility and blindness consultant who advised them on both the scripts and day-to-day work. Aria Mia Loberti herself helped give her character more credibility. “Every day there would be something in the scripts or in a scene where Aria would say to me, ‘Shawn, this isn’t very realistic.’ It was little things like: “If I went into the attic every day to broadcast on the radio, I would know the room perfectly, and even more so if I lived alone.” If I live with someone, he can move the chair or table, so I might need the cane, but living alone and in my own house, I know the way. I don’t need the stick or my hands in front of me,” the director remembers.
Together with aspiring actresses, actors with great experience. Mark Ruffalo plays Marie-Laure’s father and Hugh Laurie plays her great-uncle, a World War I veteran living in isolation at home. “We chose Mark Ruffalo because the relationship between father and daughter is at the heart of the story, especially for me, who has four daughters and was very interested in that relationship. Mark was able to bring that fatherly side and touching warmth, even though the character isn’t the type to say “I love you” 500 times, but Mark made him incredibly loving. I don’t think we’ve ever seen Hugh Laurie in a role like this. He is always cool, handsome and strong. “And I liked the idea of him playing someone who is basically paralyzed by his trauma and slowly comes back to life,” says Shawn Levy.
Director Shawn Levy and actor Hugh Laurie during filming of the third episode of “The Light You Can’t See”.DOANE GREGORY/NETFLIX
For the role of Werner, the young German captured by the Nazis to exploit his radio skills, the actor Louis Hofmann, known for his role in the series Dark, was chosen, while Lars Eidinger (Babylon Berlin) was chosen by Rumpel , a Gestapo officer is obsessed with finding the diamond that father and daughter are hiding.
Although the characters in “The Light You Can’t See” are primarily French and German, the original version was filmed in English. “It’s true that we talked a lot about language before filming, but the book was written in English and Netflix is global, but I thought it should be made in the language of the older audience.” We also talked a lot about accents and it was a difficult decision. In the end we decided to do it like in the Chernobyl series, where the Russians speak with a kind of British accent. “I hope that if the show is good, people will think about the accents in the first ten minutes and then just follow the characters,” explains the director.
Aria Mia Loberti and Mark Ruffalo, in the second episode of “The Light You Can’t See”.ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA/NETFLIX
The production largely respects the novel, but the reader will notice some changes, such as the development of Etienne’s character. “The book, like all books, reflects a lot of the inner lives of the characters, but we decided not to include voice-over, so we had to adjust some dynamics between the characters to show more of the outer lives.” In addition, they created a Plot and new characters so Werner could interact with other German soldiers in Saint-Malo, which made his mission to find the girl even more exciting. “The Light You Can’t See shows that it is possible to hold on to the optimism and goodness of the human spirit, even when the world is sometimes dark, disappointing and cruel,” the director concludes.
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