Team Cinemaholic
When you have countless forums, articles, blog-posts, think-pieces being written about a spinning (or falling) top, it is enough of evidence of the popularity and influence of ‘Inception’ in pop-culture. And I have no doubt in my mind that it will remain a fodder for discussion and arguments for years to come. But the greatest service that ‘Inception’ did to science-fiction movies is that it made them cool again. Today, we are here to tell you some interesting facts about the film that you will be surprised to know.
1. If you take the first letters of the main characters’ names – Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur, Mal and Saito – they spell “Dreams”. If you add Peter, Ariadne and Yusuf, the whole makes “Dreams Pay”, which is what they do for a mind thief.
2. Christopher Nolan initially thought it would take him “a couple of months” to write the script of the film but it ultimately took him nearly eight years.
3. In an interview, Christopher Nolan explained that he based roles of the Inception team similar to roles that are used in filmmaking – Cobb is the Director, Arthur is the Producer, Ariadne is the Production Designer, Eames is the Actor, Saito is the Studio, and Fischer is the Audience
4. Kate Winslet was approached for the role of Mal, but turned it down, citing that she couldn’t see herself as the character.
5. A series of numbers keeps appearing: the number that Fischer gives Cobb/Arthur is 528491, The two hotel rooms used are rooms 528 and 491, the number that Eames (as a woman) gives to Fischer is 528-491, the combination to the strongroom starts with 52, and the combination to the safe is 528-491. This is all to reinforce the importance of the number throughout the film. Mathematically, the number 528491 is a prime number.
6. In the film, the characters are from five different continents across the globe, performing a major heist. Cobb, Arthur, and Mal are from the U.S. (N. America). Cobb fetches Ariadne from Paris, France (Europe); Eames and Yusuf are from Mombasa (Africa). Saito is from Japan (Asia), and Fischer is from Australia.
7. The name of the character Cobb references Henry N. Cobb, an American architect notable for designing skyscrapers. The world Cobb and Mal made in Limbo consists mostly of skyscrapers.
8. Dom Cobb’s main objective is to get Home. Dom is the word for ‘home’ in most Slavic languages (e.g. Russian and Bulgarian), derived from the Latin word “Domus”. Words like “domesticated” and “domicile” all share the same “dom” root.
9. “Yusuf” is the Arabic form of “Joseph”, the Biblical figure from Genesis 37-50, who had the gift of interpreting dreams. He was sold out by his brothers to slavery. Through his gift of dream interpretation, he helped Pharaoh to prepare for the disaster of the “seven lean years” and was rewarded as a result. The same story is also told in the Quran.
10. The running time of the movie on DVD is exactly 8888 seconds.
Read More: 10 Interesting Facts That You Didn’t Know About Christopher Nolan
