Marie-Laure is a courageous blind teenager who flees German-occupied Paris during World War II and takes on a key role as part of the Resistance in the seaside town of Saint-Malo.

Levy and his team put out a global casting call for blind and low-vision actors to find the teenage Marie. “One of the benefits of having the show on a globally ubiquitous company and platform like Netflix is that we could harness the reach of all of its social channels,” Levy told Netflix. “We got thousands of iPhone videos. Some were people who had acted professionally or were aspiring actors. Others had never even thought about acting and one of those people was a Ph.D. [student] and Fulbright scholar at Penn State named Aria Mia Loberti.”

When Loberti sent in an audition tape, Levy knew there was something there. “After Zooming with her a couple times, increasingly the realization was: ‘I think this is a moonshot. A unicorn of a discovery.’ ” he said.

Loberti wasn’t expecting to get the role. Indeed, when they called her, she was prepared to start her “little speech,” thanking them for the opportunity. Then Levy said, “ ‘Well, there are moments in people’s lives where things in their life change. There are moments where they as a person change and things won’t ever go back. And I think this is one of those moments for you,’ ” Loberti shared. “And then he told me I got the part. I don’t think I said anything for a while... I just started to cry. I think the first words out of my mouth were, ‘I need my mom.’ ”

This is Loberti’s first on-screen role, but it certainly won’t be the last. “I didn’t expect to find the career I felt like I was supposed to be doing my whole life,” she said. “I never allowed myself to dream about acting when I was little. It was something I wanted to do, but couldn’t dream about. It was a bit like being a fighter pilot, I think. You just become used to people telling you what’s possible for you and you accept it. So I think that’s the most important thing to me: realizing there’s some other little girl who’s lining up her family’s chairs to do a one-woman show, like I did, but knowing she actually can do this.”

Werner is a sensitive and brilliant German teenager who gets swept up in the brutality of war when he’s enlisted by Hitler’s regime to track down illegal radio broadcasts. “One of the reasons why I wanted to do this so badly was my character’s premise. Werner is very sensitive, but also very broken,” said Hofmann. 

“He’s got this beautiful gift of being a genius, and I always find it interesting when something so positive brings about something so negative. He’s a genius with radios, but it becomes a burden when the Nazis make use of his skill, and he sort of suffers under the regime. The beautiful thing is — he keeps on trying to hold onto what’s good and that eventually leads him to Marie.”

Levy considers Hofmann, who learned how to build a 1940s-style radio in 56 seconds for the role, a revelation. “I saw at least a thousand actors for Werner and when Louis auditioned, he was so clearly in command of his craft in a way that you don’t expect from someone so young,” said the director. “He just had this innate understanding of Werner — the romanticism, the gentleness, the feeling of being swept away in a riptide of circumstance over which you have no control. He brings to life a Nazi character who is as humanized, dimensional, nuanced, and ultimately as sympathetic as I have ever seen anyone play a Nazi on screen before.”

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Daniel is a curator at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Caring and clever, he’s determined to give his blind daughter Marie-Laure as much independence as he can while also protecting her — and the secret gem they carry — from the Nazis.

When production started, Ruffalo gave Loberti a Polaroid camera as a gift. “It’s customary to buy a gift when you start shooting. So when I asked her what she wanted, she said she wanted a Polaroid camera. She did take some great shots,” he said.

All the Light We Cannot See reunited Ruffalo with his The Adam Project director, Levy. “It was great to reunite with Shawn. We had such a good time on The Adam Project,” said Ruffalo. “I was reticent about going back to Hungary. I had just shot there and I wanted to be home with my family, but he said to me, ‘I want to do something beautiful with this story and I want to do it with you.’ And that meant a lot to me. He moved heaven and earth to get me there and really believed in me for the part.”

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Etienne is an agoraphobic World War I hero who records clandestine radio broadcasts from his attic as part of the French Resistance. Laurie was very taken with his “damaged” character. “He had a traumatic experience in the First World War, and one of the consequences was that he withdrew to the walls of his own house in Saint-Malo,” said Laurie. 

“He became terrified of the outside world and developed a neurosis, which prevented him from ever leaving the house. And it is partly his relationship with Marie that encourages him to begin anew and to actually physically step outside his house, but also emotionally step outside of the trap that he’s built for himself. That’s a very touching element of the story; a slight Beauty and the Beast aspect where he’s trapped in this castle and she’s the one who lures him out into the light, so to speak.”

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Reinhold von Rumpel is a cruel, terminally ill Nazi officer, who spends his final days ruthlessly hunting down a prized, legendary diamond believed to give its owner eternal life.

Eidinger knew tapping into the mindset of a Nazi would be a challenge, but he saw the role as an opportunity to confront his own inner demons and psychology as a German actor. “I believe all Germans have a kind of trauma that’s directly influenced by our historical past,” he said. “You cannot protect yourself. You have to be very vulnerable and understand this isn’t just a fictional villain — the Nazis weren’t aliens coming from the outside. It was a movement that came out of society by democratic vote, and it’s important to face it.”

So Eidinger took the opportunity to find himself in the character and make von Rumpel feel as truthful as possible. “I want people to identify with this person,” he said. “I want to create a conflict for the audience to see themselves in this character, and not give them the opportunity to hold him at a distance and judge him. It’s more about judging yourself.”

Eidinger credits Adam Driver with nabbing him the part of von Rumpel. “I was doing a movie with him called White Noise, and at some point, Shawn Levy asked Adam to play von Rumpel,” he said. “Adam wasn’t available, but he said, ‘I’m shooting right now with an actor. You have to meet him. He’s the German me.’ At least this is the story that Shawn told me.”

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Madame Manec is a formidable woman who loves fiercely and is willing to put herself at risk in the interest of those she cares about and the country she loves. Levy considers Manec the “tough, warm matriarch ruler of this household,” and a fierce protector of Etienne, Daniel, and her great-niece, Marie.

“I remember my first rehearsal with Marion — we were just doing a first reading of a scene, and every single choice she made was exactly the way I heard it in my head,” said Levy. “I went up to her after rehearsal, and I said, ‘I know I should be withholding of love’ — I’m told that’s a technique that some directors employ. I don’t do that. I’m promiscuous with love. So I told Marion, ‘What you just did was perfect. Do that when I say ‘action’ and we’re home free.’ And we were.”

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Sutton plays Marie-Laure as a child. She displays all the curiosity, intelligence, and heart we see in her older self. When Sutton got the part, she felt like, “I just blew my mind by myself!” 

Levy actually found Sutton before he cast Loberti to play the older Marie-Laure. “At the time, I was already thinking of casting actresses who were blind or low vision to play Marie-Laure, but it wasn’t until I Zoomed with Nell that I realized I just couldn’t have an actress come in and fake it. It was wrong on every level. So, she was the catalyst,” Levy said. “There was such an innate sweetness and hilarity to Nell that just knocked me out. I was instantly obsessed with her, and I think everyone who sees even one of these episodes will share in my obsession.”

Adds show writer Steven Knight, “There’s an authenticity about physical action that could only have come from having people who live without sight. It's a bit of a miracle to have found both of them, to be honest.” 

This may be Sutton’s first acting role in a television series, but the Welsh native starred in a nationwide advertising campaign in 2020 for the Guide Dogs charity.

Jutta is Werner’s sister, whom he’s forced to leave behind when he’s recruited by the Nazis. Hofmann sees Jutta as an anchor for Werner, as her morals are straight as an arrow. “Somehow she’s more grown up than him,” he said. “When he leaves, she tells him to always be true to himself, to not ever change his frequency.”
 

Werner lies to her in his letters and tells her everything is fine, but that’s only because “he’s deeply ashamed of what he’s doing,” said Hofmann. “He could never open up to her about that, which means that he deeply respects her view of the world.”

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