How working with blind actors changed the way Shawn Levy approaches directing

Powerhouse Canadian producer-director Shawn Levy never set out to build "an awards-y career" — but the fact that his body of work is being acknowledged with the inaugural Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award at the Toronto International Film Festival is beyond his dreams. He tells me with a smile that it's "humbling [and] a little surreal, but very gratifying."

It's easy to strike up a conversation with the down-to-earth, prolific filmmaker whose credits include The Adam Project, Free Guy and Stranger Things and the upcoming Deadpool 3. He's not fazed by awards, fame or success; instead, his energy and tone kicks up a notch when he talks about making movies and series, and how those experiences have shaped him as a storyteller.

The Montreal-born filmmaker was also at TIFF to showcase his latest work, All the Light We Cannot See, based on Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The Netflix Original series follows the story of Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti), a blind French girl, and her father, Daniel LeBlanc (Mark Ruffalo), who flee German-occupied Paris with a legendary diamond to keep it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. 

The festival showcased the first two episodes of the series under the Primetime programme, and the full season will be released on Netflix Nov. 2. Levy directed all four episodes of the series and produced it through his production company 21 Laps. 

Seated in a hotel in downtown Toronto, Levy chatted about his new series, how it allowed him to access different parts of himself as a director, and how exploring the power of connection has helped make him a better version of himself. 

Congratulations on All the Light We Cannot See. This seems like such a departure for you when compared to the comedies you have done before. 

Yes, it is on paper. It's so different than anything I've done. But I've always — even when I was starting out and I became successful early with comedies and family comedies — I always wanted to do a variety of storytelling.

Little by little, I have been able to broaden what I do. [It] certainly started as a producer with Arrival and Stranger Things. It's carried through this current period where I went from Free Guy to The Adam Project to All the Light We Cannot See to Deadpool. I realize it's confusing on paper, but it feels organic to me, because I love different kinds of movies and shows.

It reminds me of something you said: this is a once in a lifetime, first-in-a-lifetime creative experience and artistic gratification. How so?

Well, when you do a piece like this, and you're in the service of such magnificent source material, you're trying to honor that source material and create a show that is as deep, emotional and beautiful as the book.

For me, I've done a lot of comedy; I've done a lot of adventure, a lot of action-comedy. When you're doing those genres, you're connecting with the audience in a certain way, and the visuals, the editing, the pace — they need to have a certain kinetic approach to engage with that audience. When you're making a show like this, which is heavier subject material, historic, grounded events, you are allowed — in fact, required — to create a style and aesthetics that are in some ways just more elegant, more lyrical, a little more poetic.

I'm making Deadpool [3] right now and that's a blast too, in a very different way, but I tried to let the story tell me what the show wants it to be. And so with [All the Light We Cannot See], that meant a certain elegant poetic quality — and, of course, performances that would do right by these amazing and specific singular characters.

I do see the poetic nature of the piece and the aesthetics that is echoed in all four episodes — and you directed them all.

Yeah, I was going to initially just produce this, then I considered, "Maybe I'll direct one of them." But when I read the first script of the first episode, I knew I didn't want to share. I wanted to direct all of them. I thought of this as another movie of mine, except this one's four hours.

One of the things you always seem to come back to is the power of redemption. Why is that a driving factor for you?

Do you want me to psychoanalyze myself?

Yes, 100%, always. [laughs]

[laughs] This show is very much about the redemptive power of connection over radio, through fathers and daughters, through strangers, one in France, one in Germany, who meet only briefly, but in some ways have a connection that will define the rest of their lives. I think that that notion is beautiful. And in my own experience, your whole life can change through a connection with the right person. I certainly experienced it with this 24-year-old who produced my student film and who I've been married to ever since, for almost 30 years. It saved me; it made me a better version of myself.

I think that my daughters have had a similar impact on me. The right connections can change the course of how we live and who we are. And so I guess a lot of my movies and shows are love letters to that idea and that possibility.

You're a visionary filmmaker with a particular style and palette of your own. What is something you got to accomplish on All the Light that perhaps made you a better director in some ways, in terms of a professional stepping stone?

For one thing, as I said earlier, getting to do cinematography and design and tone that never needs to service comedy or action; it's a pure aesthetic experience. My eye and my ability to find the shot and frame a shot absolutely evolved on this shoot, because you're not worrying about how the joke will land and where. There's only this moment, and how do I craft it beautifully.

So that was liberating and inspiring to me. But the other big thing on this was directing a blind lead, directing two blind girls, Nell Sutton and Aria Mia Loberti, who play Marie. One of them is eight and one of them [is] in their early 20s. It's a very different thing when you're directing an actor who is brand new… to acting, had never even auditioned, but is also legally blind. 

So much of the way I'm used to directing might be I'm next to the camera, I get the actor's attention, I show them something with my hands or my face, they go again, and take the note. I realized early on with Aria, ok, so I'm not going to do it visually. I need to do it with my word choice and I need to do it in how I say my words.

Aria taught me every day about the reality of her experience, and I realized that by connecting with Aria, I had to access different parts of myself and develop different tools to do my job well and to do right by her. 

In what way did you access different parts of yourself?

For one thing, you create a very accessible, respectful workspace. So the general volume level has to be low; you don't give notes from behind the camera; you go into the space. Aria told me early on — again, she was very helpful to me because she welcomes all questions, and she does not hold back advice or insights — she said, "I don't see your face, but I feel your energy. So your energy is going to tell me what you want. So get in my space and let me feel your energy because I'm going to feed off of that to some extent." I became much less facially and gesturally reliant, and much more — I think and I hope — thoughtful about how I use my words.

I noticed you seem to have a throughline with working with kids in your projects. You've done that with Walker Scobell [in The Adam Project], Stranger Things kids and now Aria and Nell. Do you prefer to work with young actors?

Yes, I have directed probably more youngsters than maybe any current working director. And it goes back to like, Cheaper by the Dozen. I seem to love kids. And I also do like the authenticity of a rookie. I'm pretty confident now in my ability to create and shape and coach a performance. So I'd rather take someone brand new, who's figuring it out for the first time, than someone who has all the tricks and has done it 50 times.

You are shaping the next generation…

It's crazy to be here in Toronto and run into Finn Wolfhard. Look at this man, who I remember seeing his audition as a boy from his bed because he was sick. That was his audition for Stranger Things — in his bed. I do have a certain parental pride about all these youngsters who I found early on, [like] Walker Scobell in The Adam Project.

Your name carries weight and you have an imprint on cinema. What are you trying to explore with your own work of art as a filmmaker, or what is the legacy you want to have?

I think life is better when we feel connected to others. So I like making films and shows that are about connection and that are themselves experiences that connect people, whether that's 200 strangers sitting at the Lightbox theatre today feeling something collectively because of what was on screen, or whether it's the literally hundreds of people who've come up to me over the last decade, telling me that Stranger Things is the only thing that they watched with their kid and their parents.

I never set out to build a legacy. It's why this award that I'm getting is sort of surreal to me. But I guess I'd love it to be a legacy of good work, populist work, and work that made people escape for a little while and connect to their hearts and others for a little while.