Is Aria Mia Loberti blind in real life from All The Light We Cannot See?
Yes, Aria Mia Loberti is blind in real life. In casting All The Light We Cannot See, 21 Laps Entertainment put out a casting call for blind and low-vision actors to play Marie-Laure as a child and as a young woman.
In an interview with Vanity Fair before the SAG-AFTRA strike. Loberti stressed the importance of having a significant role in Hollywood. “I have never felt represented,” she sais. “This is so upsetting. It’s gonna take a second. It makes me a little mad. I’ve never felt represented in media of any kind before. I am going to be that person for me. It’s terrifying.”
She also elaborated on the specific nuances that went into the role. “When I’m portraying a blind character like Marie-Laure, it was kind of shocking to watch people learn this is how she would move, and this is how history would make her blindness different from my blindness, which is not really evident to people,” she explains. “A lot of the stereotypes that we’ve had or expect to see in movies and books are based on people guessing what it’s like to be blind. There are too many smart people in this industry to keep making those mistakes.”
She also has thoughts about being defined as a “blind actor.” “I hate that phrase,” she said. I’m an actor, and I want everyone who comes after me to be accepted as an actor, or whatever profession it is that they have. I wasn’t a blind PhD student or a blind author, a blind whatever. I do those things. I am myself. Blindness, to me, is the equivalent obstacle of having anxiety and being clumsy and awkward and nerdy. It’s not something that I should put in front of my occupation.”
Before acting, Loberti has a BA in Philosophy, Communication Studies, and Political Science from the University of Rhode Island—where she graduated summa cum laude—and an MA in Ancient Rhetoric from the University of London, which she attended on a Fullbright Scholarship. She auditioned for the role on a whim. “I probably would’ve never even gone on that goddamn audition if not for that dog,” she referred to Ingrid, the service animal she’s had since college. “I was having a really rotten week. My mental health had been really bad for almost a whole year at that point. And it was right after COVID.”
“Overintellectualizing is really bad in acting,” she admits. “I had spreadsheets and notebooks. I wrote Marie-Laure fan fiction—everything I could to get into the meat of the character, listening to old radio broadcasts, learning about the city, all of these things. I internalized it all. Then by the time I got to filming…I just let whatever stayed in my muscle memory be in my body, be in the present moment.”
Director Shawn Levy confessed that casting Loberti and Nell Sutton (as young Aria) was the best decision. “I don’t think there was a day of filming this that I didn’t learn something from Nell or Aria,” he told Newsweek. “Certainly I had to teach them how to act for the camera, but they taught me every day about the reality of navigating the world without sight, and that is why I cast them, not just because I thought it was the right thing to do, but I thought it was the better thing to do because it would give this story an authenticity that a sighted actor pretending could not estimate.”
Screenwriter Steven Knight agreed, “I think the fact that both of those actresses were visually impaired removes a barrier between the audience and the character, because as an audience you’re not looking for that little clue that this is just an act, this is just a trick, you know it’s for real.” He continued, “It’s not just like it’s virtuous to do this, it’s actually more efficient and better to do this.”
