Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Inception Hallway Fight Was Only Given One Line In The Script
"Inception" tries to pack a lot into its 148-minute runtime. Between its explanations of dreamscapes and its ethical dilemmas about treating fantasy as reality, Christopher Nolan certainly had his work cut out for him. Sure, there might've been a few plot holes by the movie's end, but considering how ambitious "Inception" was, that seems pretty fair. This is a movie where characters have to suspend their disbelief all the time; it's not a big deal if the audience takes things as they are, too.
That being said, Joseph Gordon-Levitt didn't fully understand what he was getting into when he read the film's script. One of the actor's biggest scenes — the gravity-defying hallway fight scene — was barely even referenced in the screenplay. Despite the fact that the fight scene would easily become one of the most memorable parts of the movie, truly locking in a sense of how fluid the dream world can be, Gordon-Levitt told Vanity Fair that the script's description of it was incredibly bare-bones:
"In the script, it's like one line of stage direction. It's like, 'Arthur gets in a fight,' or something like that."
Naturally, the underwhelming description led to a big surprise when the actor was signed up for months of workouts and stunt training. Still, the extra preparation paled in comparison to the extra work that the crew had to put in to make the scene so believable.
The crew went through a lot of trouble for that one line, too
As frustrating as it might've been to deal with several months of unexpected physical training, the "Inception" crew had an even bigger task. Nolan opted to use as little CGI for the hallway scene as possible, so the team had to build three separate sets for the hallway scene, two of which rotated in different directions. They also had to deal with a variety of practical concerns: how do you ensure that the camera can move around smoothly when everyone is practically swimming through the air? How do you keep the actors safe as they run along what is essentially a square-shaped hamster wheel? How do you maintain a uniform sense of gravity as you cut from one shot (or one set) to another?
Ultimately though, all of the hard work was well worth it. A CGI-heavy version of the scene might've been infinitely easier to film, but the final product strikes such an impressive balance between dreamlike and believable that it's hard to imagine any alternative could've been nearly as satisfying. In fact, the hallway scene might be one of the few points where "Inception" can attempt to compete with the brilliant surrealism of "Paprika," a masterpiece of an animated film that also deals with the concept of invading dreams. Considering the fact that animated visuals are able to seamlessly melt together whereas live-action has to deal with the laws of physics (which could be a frustrating limitation for the upcoming live-action adaptation of "Paprika"), the fact that the hallway scene can even compete with its animated counterpart is truly a testament to how impressive it was.