Leonardo DiCaprio has been promoting Inception, his new cerebral thriller also featuring Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ken Watanabe. It’s directed by British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, best known for The Dark Knight and Batman Begins. The film is getting incredible reviews, with a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics are raving about it and saying it will be well remembered at awards time.

DiCaprio isn’t revealing many personal tidbits in interviews and is focusing on the film and its attributes. The plot, about people who invade the dream sleep of others, is said to have been a well kept secret up until the film was screened. The special effects in the trailer look amazing and they aren’t all computer generated. DiCaprio praised Nolan for creating full sets for the actors to work with and not relying on blue screens and CGI to create the film.

Chris… is a visionary in every sense of the word… but he’s also old school in his approach. [In] One of my first meetings with him he talked about set dressing and how he likes to immerse his actors in a real world and sort of [build] the set around them.

We surprisingly didn’t do a lot of green screening in this movie. If we were in a tilting set we built that on hydraulics. If we were in a room floating we really were floating. It was few and far between where we had to imagine things that weren’t there. He provided that for us, and that’s a testament to his film making style.

[Transcribed from video on Access Hollywood]

DiCaprio said that they were “constantly surprised” on set with the stunts and scenes that would come up, but that “we weren’t going to question Chris Nolan’s dream world… the infinite possibility of what he wanted to create in the human subconscious… it’s great when you’re working with somebody who’s so in control of their craft.”

In an interview with HeyGuys.co.uk, Nolan explained that he was inspired by the art of M.C. Escher and influenced by other films like Star Wars and The Matrix. He explained that Inception tries to remain true to how “dreams feel real when we’re in them” and that he worked to preserve “that feeling of reality” by having characters “adhere to a ruleset” that guides how we behave and experience dreams. I found his interview fascinating and I’m struck by how well DiCaprio choses projects and directors to work with. He thoroughly knows his craft and is dedicated to it.

Now I really want to see this movie and wish it was out this weekend! It’s not out until July 16th in the US, though.

You can see more of DiCaprio’s interview on Access Hollywood’s site. Here’s a trailer for Inception:

Doesn’t Leo look like a wax figure here? He’s a little puffy but waxen looking. Still hot though!