News Flash: Cast For Nolan’s Sci-Fi Film “Inception” Starting to Form

My most anticipated movie of 2010, directed by my favorite director and starring my favorite actor, just added three new impressive members to its cast. According to Variety, Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page and Cillian Murphy are in final negotiations to join Leonardo Dicaprio in Christopher Nolan’s new venture into science fiction, Inception.

(From left: Cotillard, Page, Murphy)

Writer, director, producer and genius, Christopher Nolan, takes a break from directing his  Batman series to create his first science fiction vision. As some of you may recall, I did a piece about this film a couple weeks ago where I ranted about Inception’s eventual box-office competition; I’ll take a break from that, for now. Forewarning however, if you are a frequent reader of Movie Mash, please excuse and bare with my consistent love ramblings about this film because they will continue. But back to the matter at hand.

I think this is epic casting. Nolan is such a genius when it comes to casting. He sees the hidden abilities in actors that they never thought they had themselves. He’s the one who saw the inner-intensity in Heath Ledger to pull off The Joker, that ended up being one of the most mesmerizing performances ever to be seen on screen. Now he sees something similar in DiCaprio, Cotillard, Page and Murphy.

Cotillard won the Best Actress Oscar two years ago for La Vie En Rose. I did not have a chance to see that film, but she obviously wowed the Academy enough to garner the industry’s highest honor. And not only from an ability perspective, but from a star-power/box-office perspective, the casting is smart. Cotillard is somewhat unknown now, but will play opposite Johnny Depp & Christian Bale this summer in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies; by the time Inception opens next summer, Marion Cotillard will be a household name.

We all saw Juno. Ellen Page is a tremendously gifted actress with her charming, sarcastic charisma that cannot do anything but make you adore her. She is a hot commodity after Juno took over America in 2007, so this can’t do anything but help Nolan’s film. Then you have Murphy. If you didn’t know from the photo, Murphy played the sadistic psychologist Scarecrow in Batman Begins. Murphy is a fantastic actor and he and Nolan obviously have a great rapport so this makes perfect sense.

Finally we come to the plot. Any Nolan (photo right) project comes with extreme  secrecy, usually due to the complex and mind-bending script that he writes, which are the true backbones of his films. Initially, Inception’s plot was described as “a sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.” Memento meets The Matrix anyone? Now The Hollywood Reporter is revealing a few tidbits about the complex, secret plot accompanying the casting news. DiCaprio’s character is mentioned as a CEO-type, while Cotillard would play his wife. Page is a young college grad student and DiCaprio’s sidekick. Nothing too ground-breaking yet, but hey at least it’s something.

All I can say is that this is by far my most anticipated film of 2010. Every film that Christopher Nolan has made is absolutely gripping and mind-blowing. Let’s go down the list: Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight and now Inception. Entertainment Weekly recently ranked the Top 25 Active Directors and Nolan was #4. And from that resume, I’m not surprised in the least.

What Do You Think? Discuss.