Inception Cast: A List of the Main Characters 11 Years Later!

Inception is a science fiction action movie from 2010 written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan and his wife, Emma Thomas.

In the movie, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a professional thief who gets information from people by getting into their minds. He is given a chance to have his criminal record erased in exchange for putting someone else's idea into a target's mind.

Cast List for “Inception”

Leonardo DiCaprio (Dom Cobb)

American actor Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, an experienced dream thief. DiCaprio was the first actor to be hired for Inception. He had said he wanted to work with Christopher Nolan for a while. But Brad Pitt and Will Smith were among the other well-known actors considered for the part.

DiCaprio told Nolan to change the script so that Cobb's inner turmoil over Mal could give viewers a strong emotional anchor in the middle of the film's complex and heady explorations of dream-sharing technology.

Joseph Gordon (Levitt Arthur)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an American actor who plays Dom's partner in crime and sidekick Arthur. Arthur is in charge of planning and doing research for Dom's job. Gordon-Levitt did almost all of his stunts while the movie was being made.

Gordon-Levitt thought of Arthur as a “producer” who is intelligent and practical and helps Cobb's missions by giving him information and tools. Two years later, he worked with Christopher Nolan again, this time as John Blake in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Ellen Page (Ariadne)

Ellen Page is a Canadian actress. In the movie “Inception,” she plays Ariadne, one of the main characters. Ellen Page became famous at a young age after her roles in the independent films Hard Candy (2005) and Juno (2007).

Christopher Nolan chose Page for the role because she was “fresh, smart, and older than her years.” Page is an outspoken queer activist, and in 2016 and 2017, she co-hosted two seasons of the show Gaycation on Vice.

Ken Watanabe (Mr. Saito)

Before Inception, Ken Watanabe, a Japanese actor, worked with Christopher Nolan on Batman Begins (2005). After playing opposite Tom Cruise in Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai, Watanabe became known to people in the West (2003).

In Inception, he plays Mr. Saito, a wealthy businessman who pays Cobb to get into Robert Fischer's dreams. Watanabe said that his performance as Saito was a “cycle” of emotions, just like the film's story.

Cillian Murphy (Robert Fischer)

Irish actor Cillian Murphy plays Robert Fischer, heir to his father's big business empire. Murphy's first big role was in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002). Murphy used to play rock music before he got involved in the Irish and English theatre scenes.

Before Inception, he was cast as the villain Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005). Murphy said he used the Murdoch family as a model for Robert Fischer.

Tom Hardy (Eames)

Tom Hardy is a British actor who plays the faker, Eames. Hardy studied method acting at the Drama Centre London and starred in several action movies in the 2000s, including Black Hawk Down (2001), Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), Bronson (2008), and RocknRolla (2008), before being cast in Inception (2010).

In Nolan's next movie, The Dark Knight Rises, Hardy played Bane's lousy guy (2012). Hardy said that his witty version of Eames was a mix of an “old Shakespeare lovey” and “someone from Her Majesty's Special Forces.”

Marion Cotillard (Mal Cobb)

French actress Marion Cotillard plays Mal Cobb. Cotillard became well-known in the United States after she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Edith Piaf in Oliver Dahan's La Vie en Rose (2007). She is the only actress to win in that category for a position that was spoken in French.

Nolan chose Cotillard to play Mal because she was “the essence of the femme fatale,” as he put it. Cotillard was also cast as Miranda Tate in The Dark Knight Rises, which Nolan made after that (2012).

Michael Caine (Stephen Miles)

Veteran British actor Michael Caine plays Stephen Miles. Christopher Nolan has worked with Caine before. Caine played Bruce Wayne's loyal servant Alfred in Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008).

In the 1960s, Caine first became well-known for his roles in movies like Alfie (1966) and The Italian Job (1968). Later, Nolan cast Caine in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar (2014), making it the fifth time they've worked together.

Dileep Rao (Yusuf)

The chemist Yusuf is played by the American actor Dileep Rao. Rao had small parts in Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell (2009) and James Cameron's Avatar (2009), both of which came out the year before Inception (2009).

Rao tried to give Yusuf a sense of humor and fun so that the audience wouldn't just think of him as a “drug dealer.” Rao called it an “advanced-level pharmacologist.”