Aria Mia Loberti

Aria Mia Loberti (born 1994) is an American actress. She stars as Marie-Laure Leblanc in the Netflix miniseries All the Light We Cannot See. She won her inaugural role from a global search of thousands of actresses.

Biography
Aria Mia Loberti was born and raised into an Italian-American family in Johnston, Rhode Island. Dissatisfied with her treatment in public school, her parents homeschooled her from the third through twelfth grades. As a child and teen, she trained intensively in classical ballet at the preprofessional level. She also trained in martial arts and holds a yoga teaching certification, working as a certified yoga teacher throughout college.

Loberti attended the University of Rhode Island from 2016 to 2020. She graduated summa cum laude with three majors — Philosophy, Communication Studies, and Political Science — and minors in Ancient Greek language and Rhetoric, and completed the Honors Program. She received her master's degree in ancient rhetoric with distinction in 2021 from Royal Holloway, University of London on a Fulbright Scholarship. She started her doctoral studies in ancient rhetoric at Pennsylvania State University in 2021, when she began to question her career path. She then responded on a whim to an All The Light We Cannot See open global casting search posted online.

Acting career
Loberti’s inaugural acting role was the lead character of Marie-Laure Leblanc in Netflix's adaptation of the 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See. It was also her first audition. Her performance has been universally praised by critics, described as "graceful and affecting", "luminous", "resonant, [and] captivating", and a "radiant…good and pure presence that grounds the series' sense of jeopardy." Her co-star Mark Ruffalo referred to her as "a revelation."

She received a Rising Star Award at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and an Entertainment Weekly Breaking Big Award at the 2023 SCAD Savannah Film Festival. She nominated for Best Breakthrough Performance at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Loberti, who has low vision due to a form of the genetic condition achromatopsia, landed the part after a global search for an actor who is blind or low-vision. A fan of the book, she auditioned after learning about the search from a childhood orientation and mobility teacher. Despite no acting training, Loberti beat out thousands of submissions to secure the role three weeks after she sent in her self tape. Director Shawn Levy stated of Loberti: "I didn't know what she had acted in, I didn't know what her training was, all I knew is that there was a combination of intelligence, which was extremely self-evident, and a luminous quality on camera… I later found out that not only was she new to acting—she had never even auditioned before."

In September 2023, it was announced that Loberti would serve as the new face of the beauty and skincare brand L'Occitane en Provence. In November 2023, it was announced that she would narrate a new audiobook version of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. She also appeared in the television adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Activism
Loberti is also a human rights activist and began speaking up for her own and others' educational and accessibility rights at just four years old. As a child, she advocated in her local community to improve policies for blind and low-vision students. In high school and college, she turned her focus to gender equality and participated in activities and speaking engagements with the United Nations, UN Women, and other summits. She gave a 2018 TEDx Talk about her background. In October 2023, Loberti signed the Artists4Ceasefire open letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States, calling for a ceasefire of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

On April 18, 2024, Loberti was announced as the newest UNICEF Ambassador. She has been an active supporter of UNICEF since 2022 and has traveled with the organization specifically to support educational rights, children’s literacy access, and climate change efforts.