“I wasn’t ready to write it at that point”: Not Interstellar, Christopher Nolan’s Greatest Movie Came From a 10 Year Old Dream He Was Too Afraid To Direct

SUMMARY

• Christopher Nolan's Inception is arguably one of the most ambitious additions to his filmography.
• Interestingly, Nolan initially came up with the concept a decade before its big-screen release.
• One actor's inclusion assisted Nolan in the completion of the script.

Inception is arguably one of the most ambitious movies Christopher Nolan has ever helmed, which is saying a lot given his stature as a director. While on paper, the Leonardo DiCaprio-led film is essentially a heist movie, an aspect that Nolan mastered in the opening minutes of The Dark Knight, it’s the concept that makes it the most distinctive addition to his filmography.

Behind the scenes | Credit: Inception/Warner Bros.

Although Inception premiered in the summer of 2010, it was a decade-long dream in the making for the Oscar-winning filmmaker.

Christopher Nolan got cold feet after hatching Inception‘s concept

Christopher Nolan | Credit: HellaCinema/ CC-BY-SA-4.0/Wikimedia Commons

Since his early days in showbiz, Christopher Nolan hasn’t shied away from tackling complex plots. And the concept of invading one’s dream occurred to him a decade before it was eventually conceived for the big screen.

While the top brass at Warner Bros. was thrilled by this concept, which Nolan pitched after he shot Insomnia, he confessed to getting cold feet at the time, adding (via Collider) “I wasn’t ready to write it at that point”.

Well, I certainly been a little busy in the meantime, but I think I first pitched it to the studio right after I shot ‘Insomnia’. And they were quite excited about what I was pitching them, but I realized that I wasn’t ready to develop it. I wasn’t ready to write it at that point

While his longtime collaborator and wife Emma Thomas revealed that the director kept returning to the script in between his other projects, it was Leonardo Dicaprio’s involvement that turned things around for Nolan.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s involvement cleared things up for Christopher Nolan

Leonardo DiCaprio in a still from Inception | Credit: Warner Bros.

Although the idea of infiltrating dreams for a heist setting was intriguing, for a long while, the director struggled to find the emotional score for the story, stressing: “I didn’t know how to finish the script emotionally in a sense”.

Fortunately, the Oppenheimer director finally found the emotional connection upon Leonardo DiCaprio‘s arrival, thanks to the latter’s attention “to the emotional life of the character” and how the audience would perceive it.

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.

In the end, the decade-long wait ended up contributing to the film’s acclaimed stature, as his experience on The Dark Knight boosted Nolan’s confidence when it came to tackling large-scale effects.

Inception is available to stream on Peacock.

Written by Santanu Roy

Articles Published: 1980

Santanu Roy is a film enthusiast with a deep love for the medium of animation while also being obsessed with The Everly Brothers, Billy Joel, and The Platters. Having expertise in everything related to Batman, Santanu spends most of his time watching and learning films, with Martin Scorsese and Park Chan-wook being his personal favorites. Apart from pursuing a degree in animation, he also possesses a deep fondness for narrative-driven games and is currently a writer at Fandomwire with over 1500 articles.