After seeing his acclaimed Netflix series All the Light We Cannot See secure a Golden Globe nomination on Monday morning, director-EP Shawn Levy spoke with Deadline about his forthcoming Deadpool threequel and Stranger Things‘ final season, as well as his work on the aforementioned historical drama.
When Levy got the call from his wife about the nomination, he was in the middle of his shoot day in London for Deadpool 3, which sees Ryan Reynolds’ Merc with a Mouth share the screen with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Coming out of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of the summer, he said, the team was “excited, coiled and ready to pounce” on the pic and ready it for theatrical release on July 26, 2024.
“We’re happily back at work, and now that we know it’s coming out next summer, we are working our asses off to make the best movie possible,” Levy said, “and it’s feeling good.”
The movie directed and produced by Levy will be better for time off amidst the strikes, the filmmaker suggested, given that both he and Reynolds had more “time to get to know and think about” the movie, having already shot half of it. “It does feel like we’re back at it freshly and more deeply informed about what this movie wants to be,” he told Deadline.
Amongst other projects, Levy also has the fifth and final installment of Stranger Things coming up. His first priority for the moment is Deadpool, which he’ll focus on “all the way through delivery and release.” But then he’ll of course be diving back into the world created by the Duffer Brothers for its epic send-off, which is set to commence filming next month. “Being a director every season on Stranger Things is a gift to me,” he said. “It’s part of my spiritual brotherhood with the Duffers, and you better believe I’m going to step in and play my dual role as producer and director for a chunk of Season 5, as well.”
Recognized in the category of Best Television Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, All the Things adapts the same-name Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Anthony Doer. Debuting at No. 1 on Netflix’s English-language TV charts, and reaching the Top 10 in 82 countries in its debut week, the show tells the story of the blind French girl Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti) 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. Relentlessly pursued by a cruel Gestapo officer who seeks to possess the stone for his own selfish means, the pair soon find refuge in St. Malo, where they take up residence with a reclusive uncle who transmits clandestine radio broadcasts as part of the resistance.
A “fan of the book” long before the series adaptation came together, Levy saw from the start how “epic and intimate” a TV take could be, as a character-anchored piece of unusual scale. “It’s got this historic, grand backdrop,” he said, “but it’s ultimately a character story of people trying to tenaciously preserve their goodness and their hope in the midst of circumstances where those qualities are challenged.”
World War II recreations aside, the principal challenge of the piece was the search for two young actresses who could bring authenticity to the role of Marie-Laure, as seen at different ages. He’d find them in legally blind newcomers Nell Sutton and Aria Mia Loberti, who presented the kinds of performances you could only hope for, even if the process of getting them there was unlike any Levy had before experienced. “The mere act of directing and running a set is different than it’s ever been,” he explained. “You’re using ways of communicating and creating a workplace that is fundamentally different, and I was really enriched by everything I learned from Nell and Aria in the process of directing them. My job was to lead them, but they in turn taught me.”
A principal takeaway from Levy’s work on the series was that “the on ramp to…hope” in even the darkest of times “is invariably empathy and seeing the other, whether it’s a young woman who’s blind or a young soldier across enemy lines. With empathy, and not just defined by what they are, but rather by who they are.”
Added the director-EP, “I think that it’s critical, in such a polarized world, that we see the other as an individual and as a fellow human, and not just reduced either to their defining characteristics, or their geography, or the frenzy of social media extremism.”
All the Light We Cannot See‘s competitors at the Golden Globes will include Beef (Netflix), Daisy Jones & The Six (Prime Video), Fargo (FX), Fellow Travelers (Showtime) and Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+). The show is set to air on CBS on January 7.