Michael Caine Finds Out This Week If He's In Nolan's Inception

MTV have been speaking to Sir Michael Caine and the conversation came around, with fanboy-driven inevitability, to Christopher Nolan's sci-fi engima Inception. It seems that MTV asked Caine if he had a part in the movie, and back came the reply:

I think there might be a part for me.

I think so too.

Here's everything else that Caine said on the matter:

I could well be, yes. I don't think [Nolan]'s going to make a picture without me. I will know this week if I'm going to be in it.

That last comment is the key one, I think. Either Caine has a meeting with Nolan this week or, more likely I feel, he'll find out if the schedule and/or payment requirements his people have been negotiating with Warners Bros. will be accepted. Only scheduling issues can blow this now, I'd guess.

Nolan certainly seems to like repeat players, his own little rep theatre of recurring faces. Does this lend any credence to the rumors about Marion Cotillard, who we already know has been cast in Inception, having a slink-suited turn as Catwoman in her future? Well... not yet anyway. Might just be worth an early bet if you can find a bookie willing to take it.

Most details of Inception are still shrouded in big-budget mystery, but the odd little tidbit bubbles up. It has been recently described to me as "Christopher Nolan's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", but that's still pretty vague and, possibly, part extrapolation.

If you know Nolan's debut feature Following, you'll be familair with his enjoyment of up-ended and scattered narrative structures. Inception seems likely to follow a similar strategy, if only because of the "dream logic" stories about the mind typically observe. Great – another nine months of arguments with my students about plot holes and inconsistencies that we just can't agree exist or not.