The most dedicated actor Christopher Nolan ever worked with: “Absolutely relentless”
When you’re a director the calibre of Christopher Nolan, you can barely leave the house without actors falling over themselves trying to work with you. As well as regular collaborators like Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy, and Michael Caine, Nolan has amassed an impressive array of one-time co-workers. These include Hugh Jackman (The Prestige), Guy Pearce (Memento), Florence Pugh (Oppenheimer), and Al Pacino (Insomnia), to name but a few.
It’s surprising that Leonardo DiCaprio is also still on that list, given how good a job he did for the director during their one job together. Leo played Dom Cobb, the leader of a group of dream-invading thieves in Nolan’s mind-bending thriller Inception. Not only does he fit the bill as a dashing frontman in the Brit’s never-ending quest to make a James Bond movie without Eon’s permission, but he also serves as the film’s emotional core. Dom’s relationship with his estranged wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), is what elevates Inception above every other well-made, high-concept action flick.
Nolan seemed to be very happy with DiCaprio, not just for his on-screen work but also for his efforts behind the scenes. “He’s an actor who’s absolutely relentless in his demands for authenticity of the character,” he told Collider while promoting the movie.
“The truthfulness of what he talks about… the underlying truths of the character-emotional truths,” he continued. “The journey that character is on, and so we spent months talking about the script and re-writing the script. I spent a long time re-writing the script to make sure that the emotional journey of his character was the… driving force of the movie. That’s the journey the audience is on and he, as a great actor and a great movie star with his charisma and his emotional openness to the audience, he carries the audience through on that journey.”
DiCaprio is known for taking his film roles very seriously. Even when there’s no way of actually practising going into somebody’s dreams (not that he didn’t try), he was able to focus his efforts on the more relatable parts of Cobb’s character. This helped land a concept that might have otherwise been too grand.
The man behind the Dark Knight trilogy then went on to basically give credit to the Titanic star for the entire movie coming together. “I sort of grew into the project in a way, and then I think Leo coming on board has been really the end of that process for me because, with his attention to the emotional life of the character and what that should mean to the audience, I think I finally found that emotional connection with the material that I depend on as a filmmaker,” he revealed. “[What] I’ve realised about myself over the years is if I don’t engage with something on that level, I’ll never sustain my interest in it for the two years it takes to make it.”
Considering how well they got on, it’s a shame that Nolan and DiCaprio haven’t come together again since the Inception days. With the actor’s name absent from the line-up of the director’s next film, the wait continues.
The ending to Inception was left intentionally vague, so maybe Cobb will return to our dreams at some point in the future. Or maybe he’s been there this entire time…
