She was born with an eye condition which made her diagnosis one in six billion. But little Nell Sutton has overcome blindness to land a top acting role for a Netflix mini-series, rubbing shoulders with some top Hollywood stars.
Back in 2021, we told the story of the seven-year-old, who was born with congenital glaucoma, following her dad Paul, who lost his sight to glaucoma in his teens. You can read more about that by clicking here.
But the Gwynedd youngster, a pupil at Ysgol Bro Idris, has not allowed adversity to stand in the way of her dreams, and she has just achieved something quite remarkable. She will fly to Budapest in Hungary to film alongside Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie having landed a key role in a show based on the book All The Light We Cannot See, after impressing Stranger Things director Shawn Levy, who said the youngster had "an effervescence and joyous presence that is infectious, on screen and off."
Based on the Pulitzer Prize winner from Anthony Doerr, Nell will be playing a young version of lead character Marie-Laure, a blind girl who, along with a young German soldier, tries to survive in occupied France during the war. Get stories like this straight to your inbox with our newsletters.
Nell's mum, Rachel Sutton, said: “Nell’s certainly never been shy and loves giving anything a go. She never sees her blindness as a problem. I knew she was special but I never expected her to be quite this amazing. We knew there’d be huge challenges but I always told her she’d be able to do anything.”
It will not be the first time Nell has had a starring role on the small screen. In summer 2020, she starred in a nationwide advertising campaign for the Guide Dogs charity. Having enjoyed her experience, she saw a casting call for a blind girl in a TV show, and sent off introduction tapes, which led to a Zoom audition with Mr Levy two months later.
She said: “This is the man who directed Stranger Things, the Night at the Museum series – proper Hollywood blockbuster stuff.”
Mrs Sutton added: “She’ll be watched by tens or even hundreds of millions of people to celebrate and show visual impairment in a positive light. Nell knows her blindness is an integral part of who she is, but it doesn’t define her. She can be anything she wants to be.”
Nell’s a star for the Guide Dogs Make Every Day Count campaign. Find out more here.
