For those of you that have followed Inception‘s production updates over the past year, much of the twenty-six pages worth of production notes that were released on the film’s official website may feel relatively familiar. That said, the notes still reveal many aspects of the characters, filming locations, and music that have previously gone undiscussed. This article, however, will be as informative as possible without delving into the certain details that may be considered spoilerish.
Leonardo DiCaprio on Inception and Cobb:
“It is this highly entertaining, complex thriller where anything can happen, but at the heart is one man’s quest to uncover a long-buried truth and to get back home. [...]No matter how surreal the dream state, everything needed to be grounded in our connection with the character; everything had to be emotionally charged. From Cobb’s standpoint there is something very real at stake, so all his choices, his reactions, and how he deals with the people he’s working with is a means to one end: getting back his life.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Arthur:
“Arthur is the organized one, the one making sure everything is in its right place. The way I see it, Cobb is the artist and Arthur is the producer. He’s the one saying, ‘Okay, you have your vision; now I’m going to figure out how to make all the nuts and bolts work so you can do your thing.’ But as fastidious and professional as he is, Arthur didn’t want to apply his organizational skills to being a lawyer or doctor or anything he could have been because sharing dreams is fascinating. It’s not just a job for him. I think the technology of dream sharing is something that has inspired him since he first heard about it so, ultimately, it’s not the money he’s doing it for. He wouldn’t risk his life for a good paycheck. He loves it.”
Christopher Nolan on Ariadne and Ellen Page:
“In writing the script for ‘Inception,’ it was very important to me that there be a conduit for the audience – a character who is being shown this world for the first time and is eager to explore it. That’s how the character of Ariadne was born. It was also very important for the audience to see Cobb through Ariadne’s eyes and get to the core of the character. And when I met with Ellen, she had the perfect combination of freshness and savvy and maturity beyond her years. She is an extraordinary performer with incredible creativity and an innate curiosity of her own and, therefore, naturally infused Ariadne with those qualities. Ellen was able to balance the emotional life of her character with the need for Ariadne to bring the audience in and show them the truth.”
Ellen Page on Ariadne:
“I was excited that Chris had written an awesome role for a young woman who is intelligent and comfortable in her own skin. She is thrust into this completely new environment and unusual situation and deals with it very eloquently. She can very much hold her own, especially in a group that’s a bit of a boys’ club.”
Tom Hardy on Eames:
“In the dream world, Eames can project the image of anyone, so he’s actually forging an identity in a physical manifestation and can convince another person that he’s whomever the team needs him to be in order to aid their deception. What’s especially interesting for me about these characters is the idea of the antihero, the fact that what they are doing could be considered dishonorable, but you still root for them. That’s nice because it’s not just black and white; we have a lot of gray area to play in.”
Emma Thomas on comic relief:
“There is a fun dynamic between Eames and Arthur in the movie. Clearly, they have a rivalry that dates back before our story begins, but they also have a grudging admiration, even if they’d never admit it. They are a pretty funny duo to watch as the heist unfolds.”
Marion Cotillard on Mal:
“Mal is a tricky one to describe because she is a mix of so many things. But maybe it’s the kind of thing you don’t describe because different people can have different interpretations.”
Christopher Nolan on Marion Cotillard:
“Marion brought an exceptionally haunting quality to her performance. What she was able to do with just her eyes and her emotional openness is quite beautiful. And she and Leo together portray an incredibly moving couple. Underneath all the action, I think ‘Inception’ is very much founded on a love story, and these two actors found the truth of that in a most remarkable way.”
Emma Thomas on Saito as ‘The Tourist’:
“We refer to him as ‘the tourist’ because he has no expertise, but uses his financial influence to join the group.”
Christopher Nolan on Ken Watanabe:
“I wrote the part specifically for Ken because I wanted to work with him again. I enjoyed directing him so much on ‘Batman Begins,’ but his role was smaller and we didn’t have a lot of time together. This time I made sure he had a bigger part. Ken is an extremely charismatic performer, a true movie star. He is a consummate actor who knows how to get the most out of every scene. It’s just a pleasure to watch him work.”
Cillian Murphy on Fischer:
“Despite his vast wealth, Robert is riddled with all sorts of insecurities, as one might expect of someone who has lives his entire life in the shadow of a hugely powerful individual. It doesn’t help that he has a very strained relationship with his father. So here you have a person who is about to inherit the world and is lacking for nothing except, perhaps, the thing he wants most: a proper relationship with his father.”
Emma Thomas on Cillian Murphy:
“We were so happy to work with Cillian again. He’s a fantastic actor and he brought so much to his role. I think the character of Robert Fischer is especially interesting, because in a heist movie the mark isn’t always so multifaceted. But Robert becomes a very large part of the story’s emotional heart and a great deal of that is found in Cillian’s performance.”
Dileep Rao on Yusuf, ‘The Chemist’:
“An avant-garde pharmacologist, who is a resource for people, like Cobb, who want to do this work unsupervised, unregistered and unapproved of by anyone. Yusuf obviously has a monetary interest in helping Cobb, but he is also motivated by a burning curiosity. He has been experimenting with this stuff for so long and now he wants to see what it’s like.”
Hans Zimmer on Sound and Music:
“We talked about wanting big waves of sound, which would require more brass than strings, so I put together a huge brass section. We recorded them separately because there was no way that strings would have survived the onslaught.”
Christopher Nolan on Sound and Music:
“There are scenes in the film where the score and the sound design are literally indistinguishable. What you wind up with it something that connects the different layers of reality the movie presents between waking and dreaming.”
Christopher Nolan on the Edith Piaf song:
“One of the decisions I had to make early on was regarding our use of the Edith Piaf song. Due to the nature of its place in the story, should it be handled by the sound department or Hans? I decided to give it to Hans because the song was going to have to weave into the score at some point, and he is a genius at blending music and sound together – figuring out the balance between instruments and synthesizers and voices and sound effects. It’s very exciting.”
Has Zimmer on the Edith Piaf song:
“I love that Chris wrote Edith Piaf into the script because there is a timeless romantic quality to her voice.”
Chris Corbould on the tilting bar set:
“I’ve done many gimbal sets where you see everything shaking and it’s mayhem. This was quite different because as the whole rig was tilting, all you’re seeing are the angle of the drinks and the hanging lamps moving in unison. It really achieved the surreal effect Chris (Nolan) was looking for. It was quite a large structure to tilt fully. In simple terms, it was basically a seesaw controlled by two pistons that could be raised and lowered to get the platform to slant. I believe the entire set tilted to approximately 20 degrees, which doesn’t sound like much…until you try to stand on it.”
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