Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann (‘All the Light We Cannot See’ casting directors) on the challenge of casting a blind person in a leading role: ‘It’s never been done’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockman have never had an assignment like the one they faced with “All the Light They Cannot See,” the four-part Netflix wartime limited series that’s adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from author Anthony Doerr. The UK-based casting directors were tasked with finding a pair of blind actors to play the dual lead role of Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl. Executive producer and director Shawn Levy was insistent that they go for strict authenticity in casting. And Netflix was very much onboard. It tells you everything you need to know about partners Bevan and Brockman that hey viewed this incredibly difficult challenge as “a hugely appealing” thing, in Bevan’s words. “Casting a blind person in a leading role…well, it’s never been done before,” Bevan adds. “But that was very much part of the appeal.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.
As there is no sight-impaired wing of the Screen Actors Guild from which to draw, Bevan and Brockmann put out a call for a pair of blind actors to portray a blind young woman as well as that same woman as a child. A global E-blast seeking audition videos was sent out to charities and community groups for the blind “because we didn’t know if a regular social media search would land in the right places,” Brockmann explains. More than a thousand videos poured in from literally all over the world. “We were incredibly fortunate to get such a positive response,” Brockmann adds. “It was very labor-intensive, but it’s the job. You see as many people as you possibly can and watch as many audition tapes as you can. And it was incredible. People sent us auditions from every corner of the earth. We met (over Zoom) lovely girls in America, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and all over Europe.”
In fact, the first of two needles in haystacks was found in a young blind girl from a small village in Wales named Nell Sutton, who had never acted before. Her sole performing work was a dialogue-free appearance in a commercial for Guide Dogs UK. “You could tell she had an amazing personality and really shone on screen,” Brockmann recalls. Sutton, afflicted with congenital glaucoma, was flown to London for a live audition and aced it. “She’s got this rich internal life,” Bevan observes. “The thing we had to do with Nell was just to get her to focus. Fortunately, she loved Shawn the moment we got them together.”
Finding the older Maria-Laure was possibly an even more unlikely story. The casting directors received a tape from a blind woman named Aria Mia Loberti, a former Fulbright Scholar and PhD candidate with a impressive resume – in academia. Like Sutton, she had no acting experience whatsoever. But as Bevan emphasizes, “What was clearly apparent from the moment we first met her on Zoom is that she’s extraordinarily bright and able to take direction.” Levy had the final say in who got hired, but he was taken by her “fierce intellect” and the “luminous” quality she exhibited onscreen.
Once Nell and Aria were cast, it became important to find seasoned performers to surround their inexperienced costars. Bevan and Brockmann couldn’t have done much better than Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie, as well as a group of talented German actors headed by newcomer (to America) Louis Hofmann. “We were so lucky to have Mark and Hugh,” Bevan says. “We had a lot of people (operating) at the top of their game so Aria could learn, she could absorb all of their skill and talent.”
But no matter how much faith Bevan and Brockmann had in Nell and Aria, there is still a measure of uncertainty until the lights go on the camera begins to roll. It’s a creeping anxiety that they feel no matter how certain they are of their actor choices, but especially when those performers are untested. “I always wonder how any act that we cast is going to get on and deliver.” Brockmann admits. “There’s always that element of unknown. But I think coming back to Lucy’s point, Aria and Nell were just so incredibly bright. They’re so clover, and that bode really well for them being on set. We had faith they would be brilliant and be able to navigate through this completely new experience for them both.”
“I was really confident in them both,” Bevan assures. “And obviously, when we saw the show, I was blown away. They exceeded our expectation.”
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