Inception — Characters & Cast

To have his criminal record erased so he can return home to his children — and, beneath that, to be forgiven for the idea he planted in his wife.

Begins as a fugitive extractor who steals secrets from the subconscious and is quietly sabotaged by his own. Over the mission he is forced to confess his role in Mal's death, confront her projection in limbo and let her go, moving from a man who curates memories to one who accepts the present and finally looks at his children's faces.

Professional loyalty to Cobb and a craftsman's insistence that the job be done properly and safely.

The team's researcher and rationalist, who does the homework Cobb is too compromised to do. When the plan collapses in the second level he improvises brilliantly, engineering a zero-gravity kick with an elevator and explosives, and emerges as the crew's steadiest operator.

Intellectual fascination with building impossible worlds, which turns into a moral responsibility to save Cobb from his own architecture.

Recruited as a student architect, learns the rules of dream-building alongside the viewer, then goes further than her job requires: she uncovers Cobb's hidden memories, insists on joining the mission and descends into limbo to bring him back. She ends as the only person who truly knows what Cobb has been carrying.

As projection: to keep Cobb with her in the dream world she considers real. As memory: the conviction, once planted, that the waking world is the illusion.

Not a character acting in the present so much as a memory that evolves. She appears first as a glamorous saboteur, then as a tragic figure in flashback, and finally as the accusation Cobb must answer aloud before he can dismiss her. Her arc is really Cobb's changing relationship to his own guilt.

To destroy a rival energy conglomerate — and, increasingly, to see whether a leap of faith can be honoured.

Enters as the wealthy client who commissions the impossible job, insists on riding along to verify the work, is mortally wounded early and slips into limbo, where he ages a lifetime alone. His reunion with Cobb at the film's edges closes the bargain that frees them both.