Christopher Nolan explains how Leonardo DiCaprio made ‘Inception’ better
13 years since Inception premiered in theatres, Christopher Nolan has commended Leonardo DiCaprio for enhancing the film. Inception was Nolan’s seventh film and starred Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Tom Hardy, both of whom would work on Nolan’s following instalment in the Batman franchise, The Dark Knight Rises.
When discussing the original version of Inception, Nolan mentioned that the initial script was a lot more methodical than it became, telling author Tom Shone in The Nolan Variations, “I was working on a more superficial version of the project, because all the story elements were in there, but I was still trying to approach it from a genre perspective”. Once DiCaprio became involved with the project, he mentioned that Nolan should try to make the script feel personal.
As Nolan explains, “Leo encouraged me and demanded of me to push it in a more character-based direction. He didn’t write, but he would go over the script and come up with ideas”. This involved editing the script where DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb focuses more on the relationship with his family in between dream sequences.
Nolan would go on to say that DiCaprio’s suggestions made the script better when translating it to film, saying, “It was a fraught, difficult process, the rewriting went on for months and months because he’s very demanding, but it was very productive. I think he made it a more resonant film”. The film would go on to win multiple Academy Awards for Sound Design and Cinematography, as well as being nominated for ‘Best Screenplay’.
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