But, a page-for-page adaptation was never the goal.
The mountain will always exist.
Long after us, the mountain will be here.
All the Light We Cannot SeeNetflix
We did a painting of that mountain.
Were not trying to replace it.
Were not trying to make a photograph or a Xerox.
Its our impression of that mountain.
DEADLINE: Can you tell me more about finding Aria Mia Loberti and Nell Sutton?
Youre not calling agents.
Youre not calling managers.
Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann, my incredible casting directors, they had to get really industrious and creative.
Its not even because their performances were so great in those early readings.
But its because they had a quality that was super compelling.
In the case of Nell, I compare her sometimes to the bubbles into ginger ale or champagne.
She has this effervescence and humor and warmth thats irresistible.
DEADLINE: I imagine there are many challenges when directing young actors without much experience.
How did you approach directing young actors without sight?
Im obviously an expressive person.
I often will direct using my face or my hands.
Theyll know from looking at me what I want them to do with the adjustment.
What I realized early on with Nell and Aria is that thats irrelevant.
That is not useful.
So it was this very different mode of directing.
DEADLINE: What about shooting on location?
I was surprised to see that you actually did take the production to Saint-Malo.
You have to be tenacious.
So you get a lot of built in production value.
We built some huge interior sets in Budapest, like the grotto and the hero house.
I was a rabid fan of this book.
I love the book.
Saint-Malo is iconic and a signature element of the book.
It just felt wrong to me to fake it, to do it with visual effects.
It has an epic scale, a historic texture.
I said then and there, I know its inefficient, and it probably costs more money.
But were coming here, and were shooting a chunk of this in the real place.
DEADLINE: Theres no denying those shots are incredible.
They have a quality that seems hard to re-create.
LEVY:you could do a lot of thing with visual effects.
But, its interesting.
Over the course of my career, visual effects have evolved.
They can pretty much do anything now.
But Im almost working in the other direction.
DEADLINE: Do you think the actors can feel the difference?
LEVY:This is a thing that people dont talk about a lot.
I built real dinosaur sections onJurassic.
It changes the reality of the actors performance.
It gave a grounded [feeling].
Again, it comes back to that word that was dominant for me on this project authenticity.
In the same way that Arias experiences a blind person did.
Wherever I can give my actors the real thing, I know it makes the performances better.
So I was in this moment where I had done a lot of family comedies.
I wanted creative experiences that were challenging and maybe unexpected.
When I read the book, I couldnt get the rights, they were already snatched up.
But like three years later, they became available, and Dan Levine and I had 21 Laps.
We chased them down and we got them.
But in the interim, we had producedArrival.
We had produced and I had directed someStranger Things.
So those projects were incredibly invigorating to me creatively.
DEADLINE: How was your collaboration with Anthony?
Especially after the original adaptation did not come to fruition.
So once Tony signed off on that central premise, he was incredibly trusting.
He actually said, What I do is alone in a room on a page.
What you do is a different art form.
Do your thing for your form.
I already did my thing for mine.
All The Light We Cannot Seeisstreamingon Netflix.
