For as long as she can remember, Aria Mia Loberti has been a performer—prone to singing, dancing, and putting on one-woman shows during family gatherings. “I just didn’t think that I could ever be an actor—it never crossed my mind that that was an option because of who I am,” she tells Vanity Fair in an interview conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike. “When you’re part of any marginalized group…you understand that there’s hegemony and power and you don’t have a lot of it.”
Like the character she plays in Netflix’s All the Light We Cannot See, a four-part limited series premiering Thursday that’s based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning 2014 novel, Loberti is blind. The 29-year-old’s ability to harness her lived experience drives All the Light forward.
Adapted by Steven Knight and directed by Shawn Levy, the story is set during World War II. It centers the lives of a young German soldier named Werner (Louis Hofmann), recruited by the Nazis due to his radio technology abilities, and Loberti’s Marie-Laure, French girl who broadcasts from her uncle’s home while separated from her beloved father Daniel LeBlanc (Mark Ruffalo).
Loberti was plucked from a pool of thousands of both sighted and vision-impaired or legally blind actors to play the series’ heroine. “I probably would’ve never even gone on that goddamn audition if not for that dog,” she says, nodding to Ingrid, the service animal she’s had since college, who audibly snores while resting at her feet. “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.” But bolstered by an affinity for the novel and a self-love she credits Ingrid for instilling, Loberti made her first self-tape.
Several more auditions followed, not that Loberti ever expected to secure the part. At the time, she considered herself a PhD student at Penn State first and foremost, pursuing her doctoral studies in rhetoric. The Rhode Island native had already earned her masters in 2021 from Royal Holloway, University of London as a Fulbright Scholar. “I just kept going on tape and meeting with people, and I was just happy doing that,” Loberti recalls. At the time, she thought she might go no farther: “I like acting. It makes me feel good. Too bad it can’t be a career. They’re gonna go hire a sighted girl.”
Then came a life-changing call from Levy, who has recently found success casting newcomers on Netflix’s Stranger Things. “I had this whole speech prepared that was thanking him for the time, hoping that he would still consider hiring a blind actress and maybe asking like, how can I get involved in local theater?” she says. “And then I just remember shaking so badly. Ingrid was in my lap cause I was crying so hard. I don’t really remember much after that,” Loberti adds with a laugh. “I think I made cookies and ate like, two dozen by myself that afternoon—it was a lot.”
In preparation for her gig, which had the novice actor sharing scenes with pros like Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie, Loberti couldn’t rely on her academic past. “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.”
When she reached the production’s set in Budapest, Loberti was stunned to learn just how many people would witness her acting debut. “I had never been on a set. I thought that sets included a director, a camera person, maybe like a lighting guy,” Loberti remembers. “And it’s like, 300 people, which was intimidating—300-some-odd people are gonna watch me do a job I’ve never done for the first time.” Loberti felt herself guided by the set’s smell and sound, as well as playlists she’d listen to each morning before filming. As Levy previously told Vanity Fair, “It just became clear to me that even though she was literally figuring out how to do it while she did it, there was something luminous about Aria, and unsurprisingly, fiercely intelligent.”
“Everything has a voice. You just have to listen.” That’s both a refrain in Anthony Doerr’s novel and a lesson Loberti has had to internalize, given the dearth of opportunities for performers with disabilities. “In 2023, that I am the first actor who’s blind to be the lead or have a large role in a Hollywood production of that scale—that’s living proof that change needs to happen,” she says.
While she doesn’t like to dwell in negativity, when asked point-blank if she’s felt represented in Hollywood before, Loberti gets noticeably flustered. “I have never felt represented,” she says, then pauses. “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.”
