Inception - Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page interview interview

JOSEPH Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page talk about getting to grips with the mind-bending nature of Christopher Nolan’s Inception during the London press conference for the film. Joseph also talks about coping with the gimbal for the film’s jaw-dropping action sequences, and Ellen reveals why she feels her character is much cooler than her…

Q. When you first read it, did you understand it?

Ellen Page: Of course, it’s complex and literally multi-dimensional… it has multiple layers to it. When I read the script, to be honest, I found it an incredibly immersive experience and with the complexity of the emotional through-line with Leo’s character and Marion’s character, the sincerity and honest base of the movie … but, of course, there are still so many questions that arise. Talking to Chris made it much clearer and eventually more second nature.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Generally when you read a script you know exactly what’s going to happen and it doesn’t really take much thought to figure everything out, you don’t have to figure anything out. And I enjoy a challenge or provocation, something to think about, to talk about after it’s done. So yeah, first time I read it I found it posed a challenge and that’s enjoyable to me rather than just reading through something that I’ve seen before.

What’s interesting is then seeing the final movie, so many of these ideas when you’re reading in the script I can maybe go back and figure them out but when visually rendered just become visceral and much more emotional.

Q. How was filming in the zero gravity gimbal? I gather when Chris cast you he said there was going to be pain involved?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: It was a little painful occasionally but no more than just playing a hard game of football or whatever… American football, that is. Honestly, it was just about as much fun as I’ve ever had on a set. I felt like a little kid playing in the backyard, playing pretend but it was actually really happening. I love the fact it wasn’t done in front of a green screen because that really would be just playing pretend. But because he had built these enormous contraptions and various devices and techniques, the floor really was spinning out from under my feet and I really was 10 storeys up in the air with nothing beneath me.

But I think that makes the scenes a lot more compelling because I don’t have to fool the audience into feeling I’m off-balance because I really was off balance. And I think it comes across… there’s sequences that look really different to your average digitally created action scenes and I think that’s a big part of why it’s so much fun to watch.

Q. How was playing the character of Ariadne?

Ellen Page: I absolutely adored playing Ariadne, and was so excited that Chris had written a role for a young woman who was just full of such intellectual curiosity and discovered something that was going on with Leo’s character and was perhaps going to present some obstacles and essentially ended up helping him navigate through all that. Ariadne is so smart and brave and way cooler than me.

Q. This movie is about dreams, so what are you professional and personal dreams?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yeah, I had a dream that I was at a press conference and people asked about my dreams and I couldn’t figure out what I was going to say [laughs].

Q. What’s the most frightening moment you’ve see in a film?

Ellen Page: I think the most terrifying things I’ve seen have been created by human beings in reality. I think I just saw the most traumatic thing I’ve ever seen in a film during the documentary Earthlings. It’s of a fox that has been skinned for a coat and it’s been skinned alive, and it’s still alive after being skinned. It was really the most traumatic thing… even just thinking about it now is making my body uncomfortable because it’s the most traumatic image I’ve ever seen and it was hard to watch. But I’m grateful I saw it because human beings need to see all these things that are going on constantly. I’m shaking talking about. It’s really hard to see but it’s a really important documentary.