DiCaprio takes cathartic journey in ‘Inception'

Here, he talks about the mind-blowing complexities of working on Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi, action, psychological thriller Inception, and his own preference for dark material.

MOJO: Have you thought differently about dreams since working on this film?

DICAPRIO: It’s interesting because I’m not a big dreamer. Never have been. I remember fragments of my dream. And I tried to take a traditional sort of approach to researching this project, read books on dream analysis.  . . . I realize this is Chris Nolan’s dream world and it has its own structure and own set of rules that he’s created. So, it was basically being able to sit down with Chris for about two months every other day and talk about the structure of this dream world. And the rules that apply in it.

MOJO: What did you love about this character?

DICAPRIO: This was an extremely ambitious concept that Chris was trying to pull off here. There’s very few directors in this industry that would pitch it to a studio, that would want to do a multi-layered, almost at times existential, high-action, high-drama surreal film that’s sort of locked in his mind. And have an opportunity to do that. And that’s a testament to work he’s done in the past. . . . He’s able to portray these highly condensed highly complicated plot structures and give them emotional weight and have you, as an audience, feel fully engaged along that process. For me, it was a matter of sitting down with Chris and being able to really form the backbone of a character that had a real cathartic journey and really had almost created a scenario where it became a giant therapy session. At the end of the day, these different layers of the dream do represent a psycho-analysis and getting deeper and deeper and closer and closer to the truth you need to understand about yourself. So that on its own is immediately intriguing.

MOJO: This was another character that was very chameleon-like, with a lot of secrets and mysteries. Are those roles you’re naturally attracted to? Or are those the kind of roles pitched to you?

DICAPRIO: When I read a script, if I feel like I can be of service to that role, if I feel like it emotionally engages me, it’s something that interests me and obviously the director has the capacity to pull off the ambitious nature of whatever they’re trying to do in the screenplay, I never question that. I guess a lot of my films have been more serious in tone but that’s something I don’t try to deny. Look, I’m a very fortunate person. I get to choose the movies I want to do. I have a lot of friends that don’t get to do that. I grew up in L.A. A lot of my friends are actors. And so I realize everyday how lucky I am to have this opportunity. So while I’m here, I’m going to try to do exactly what I want.

MOJO: Do you see this as a dark phase in your career, and “Shutter Island” and this movie as book ends?

DICAPRIO: These types of films that are psychologically dark at times I find extremely exciting to do because there’s always something to think about. There’s nothing more boring than to show up on set and say a line and know your character means exactly what he says. It’s interesting to have an unreliable narrator.

“Inception”

Opens: July 16

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe

Plot: Dom Cobb (Di Caprio) is an expert at the high stakes game of extraction, or stealing secrets from the subconscious during the dream state. It’s an especially useful skill in corporate espionage but one that has made Cobb a fugitive. One last, impossible job – inspiring an idea, rather than stealing one -- could give him his life back. But it means a tricky confrontation with his own psyche.