FUN FACTS FROM THE CAST OF INCEPTION

Marion Cotillard
-She’s the daughter of former mime and theatre director Jean-Claude Cotillard and actress Niseema Theillaud. She began acting in the early ‘90s in one of her father’s plays
-Was nominated as Best Actress in the same year Ellen Page was nominated as well, Marion won though :)
-Luc Besson cast Cotillard in her first big commercial role in the French box-office hit “Taxi.” Then, in 2003, Tim Burton introduced her to English-speaking audiences in “Big Fish.”
-Cotillard is the first actress to receive the Best Actress Oscar (as Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose”) for a non-English speaking role since Sophia Loren won in 1962 for “Two Women.”

Ellen Page
-Ellen considers Patti Smith her role model and Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep her favorite actresses.
-Ellen was in the running for the role of Natalie Keener in “Up in the Air,” but the part went to “Twilight’s” Anna Kendrick, who went on to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
-“I don’t really want to do the Hollywood thing. I think you ought to try to say something with your movies.”

Joseph Gordon Levitt
-Joseph attended but did not graduate from Columbia University, where he studied French.
-His first breakthrough was on the hit TV show “Third Rock from the Sun.”
-His maternal grandfather was Michael Gordon, who directed such films as the 1950 “Cyrano de Bergerac” and 1959’s “Pillow Talk.” Mike Gordon’s career was hampered after he was blacklisted in the ’50s. He became a professor at UCLA.

Tom Hardy
-He loves to drink coffee, Coke, fizzy water, fruit drinks, Red Bull, and tea.
-The British actor got his first big break in HBO’s “Band of Brothers.”
-“You don’t step on stage to eat, you go there to be eaten.”

Ken Watanabe
-Mostly cast as Japanese samurai warriors in his career, Watanabe incorporates the samurai’s values in his daily life by not amassing too many material possessions and by living his life with honor, pride and discipline.
-Watanabe, nominated for Best Supporting Actor in “The Last Samurai,” is one of seven actors of Asian descent nominated for an Academy Award. The others are Miyoshi Umeki, who won Best Supporting Actress for “Sayonara” (1957); Sessue Hayakawa, nominated for “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957); Mako, nominated for “The Sand Pebbles” (1966); Haing S. Ngor, who won Best Supporting Actor for “The Killing Fields” (1984); Pat Morita, nominated for “The Karate Kid” (1984); and Rinko Kikuchi, nominated for “Babel” (2006).
-The actor was diagnosed with leukemia in 1989. He is now fully recovered.

Dileep Rao
--Dileep holds an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater.
-He competed on “Jeopardy!” and won $34,400.

Cillian Murphy
-Murphy auditioned for the role of Batman in “Batman Begins,” which eventually went to Christian Bale. Director Christopher Nolan liked Cillian’s audition so much, however, that he gave him a role as Batman’s enemy, Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow.
-The Irish born actor greatly admires actor Liam Neeson and looks at him as a surrogate movie dad.
-Murphy was planning a career in law until he discovered the world of acting

Tom Berenger
-He graduated from the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism.
-Berenger claims that he had a few very bad years, from 1979 to 1981. The roles stopped coming, and he says, “I was just scraping by financially, and emotionally I was getting really defeated. I got to the point where I could hardly go on auditions anymore."
-Is a major world history buff

Christopher Nolan (technically not a part of the cast...?)
-Born in London in 1970, Nolan began making films at 7, using his father’s super 8mm camera and an assortment of male-action figures.
-Nolan is a big James Bond told writer/director David S. Goyer that his favorite James Bond movie is “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
-He considers Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott two of his primary influences as a director.