How Inception Took Ten Years to Learn to Fly

From horror to heist

Christopher Nolan carried Inception around for nine to ten years, a script he first imagined as horror before it hardened into a heist structure. The real spark came when he started imagining the dramatic possibilities of multiple people sharing the same dream, a premise that turned a solitary nightmare into an ensemble caper.

He had actually pitched the idea to Warner Bros. in 2001, then deliberately put it on hold. Nolan wanted large-scale experience first, so he made Batman Begins and The Dark Knight before returning to the dream job.

Convincing Leonardo

Leonardo DiCaprio had turned down multiple Nolan projects before Inception. The concept finally intrigued him enough to commit after Nolan explained it in person.

A corridor that spins

For the zero-gravity hotel fight, the crew built a 100-foot hallway suspended on eight concentric rings powered by electric motors that could rotate a full 360 degrees, a nod to a technique from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Joseph Gordon-Levitt trained for several weeks to choreograph fights inside the spinning set, which Nolan likened to a giant hamster wheel.

Practical first

Nolan minimized computer graphics whenever possible, preferring practical effects and ending up with approximately 500 visual effects shots compared with up to 2,000 in contemporary effects-heavy films. The Limbo city was born from a basic glacier model fed into a computer program that automatically generated organic-looking urban elements like roads, intersections and ravines. For the fortress assault, visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin built miniatures of the mountain set and then physically destroyed them for the film. The Paris folding set piece was pre-visualized with rough computer animations that Nolan referenced on set while directing actors during principal photography. It is that mix of patience and tinkering that makes the dream feel weighty.