Inception saw a team of experts infiltrating other people’s dreams and planting ideas in their subconscious, but what does every member of the team do? Christopher Nolan is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of his generation, and his works have stood out for their outstanding visuals and complex storylines, along with the themes he often addresses, such as identity, time, and memory, often combining them. In 2010, Nolan took these and added the complexity of dreams to the mix in Inception, one of the best movies of the decade as well as one of Nolan’s best works.
Inception introduced the audience to Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a professional thief who specializes in stealing information by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets through their dreams, extracting and implanting ideas in the process and as needed. Cobb has been on the run for years after the death of his wife, and when he’s offered to have his criminal history erased so he can go back to his family, he takes on a complex mission that requires the help of his team. Together, Cobb and company build dream scenarios with different layers so they can extract the information they need from business heir Robert Michael Fischer (Cillian Murphy), but their mission gets more and more complicated with each layer.
Given how complex and potentially dangerous Cobb’s missions can be, he has carefully chosen the members of his team, and he only works with people he can fully trust, more so after his previous architect betrayed him. By the time he and the rest infiltrate Fischer’s dreams, Cobb’s team was formed by six members, including Cobb, each with a very specific role in order to build believable dream scenarios so their target wouldn’t notice they were in a dream. Here’s what every member of Cobb’s team in Inception really does.
Dom Cobb – The Extractor
Dom Cobb is the leader of the team and also has the role of “extractor”. As the name says, his role is to extract the information he needs from other people’s minds through their dreams, and for that, he has to create false circumstances in order to manipulate the target into being comfortable or threatened enough to reveal their secrets – and for that, he needs the help of the rest of the team, as well. Dom is considered one of the best extractors in the business, and as such, he has been hired by corporations in order to steal information they can’t access through any other means, but Dom’s job is far from easy. People can be trained to protect their subconscious, as happened with Fischer who had been trained by an extractor, but that still wasn’t enough to keep Cobb away, though it definitely made his job a bit harder.
Arthur – The Point Man
Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is Cobb’s right-hand man and thus one of the most loyal members of the team. Arthur’s role in the team is that of “Point Man”, meaning that, while Cobb plans and provides the direction of each mission, Arthur focuses on the execution of it and researches the details of each mission so everyone else knows what to do. Depending on how the mission goes, Arthur can improvise and make adjustments to the plan in order to keep everyone safe while also ensuring that they won’t fail. Thanks to how organized and stable his mind is, he’s often used as the dreamer for secondary dream levels, and he has also shown ability in hand-to-hand combat as well as in the use of different firearms, which came in handy during the Fischer mission.
Ariadne – The Architect
After Cobb’s first architect, Nash, betrayed him and Arthur, Cobb recruited Ariadne (Elliot Page), a college student of architecture (of course!). As the architect of the team, Ariadne is in charge of designing the dream space into which the target is brought. This is one of the most complex roles in the team as the architect has to come up with different levels of dreams within a dream, along with the aesthetic of each one and tactile details, as once the target is brought into that dream space, they fill it with details of their own subconscious and memories. The architect isn’t held back by the physics of real-world architecture, and they can create paradoxes in their designed dream spaces. The architect is key in making the dream feel real, and Cobb was lucky to find a great one in Ariadne.
Eames – The Forger
Eames (Tom Hardy) is the team’s “Forger”, a specialist at in-dream impersonations. The forger can take the physical appearance and mannerisms of a person inside the dream, and they do it by projecting their desired appearance into a mirror and then exchanging places with it. The forger’s role is key to the mission’s success as by taking the appearance of someone the target trusts and is comfortable with, they can mislead and manipulate them, and thus they can get the information they need. In order to make these illusions as believable as possible, Eames studies the physical characteristics, traits, and mannerisms of the people closest to the target.
Yusuf – The Chemist
Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is the chemist, and he joined Cobb’s team after Eames recommended him, as Yusuf was able to create customized somnacin for dream sharing. The chemist, then, is responsible for creating chemical compounds to achieve dream sharing, and some of them, like Yusuf, are able to develop complex compounds that allow the dreamers to experience more lucid dreams, thus making them feel a lot more real. In Yusuf’s case, he was also asked to enter the dream space in order to provide subconscious knowledge to create the compound within the dream layers so they could build a three-layered dream.
Saito – The Employer
Although Saito (Ken Watanabe) wasn’t a proper member of Cobb’s team, he was part of it in the Fischer mission – after all, he was the one looking to get information from him. In this case, Saito’s role was that of the “Employer”, as he was the one who offered Cobb to have his criminal record erased if they could implant an idea in Fischer’s mind, and thus he would get what he wanted. However, he was referred to as a “tourist” among the team, as even though he was inside the dream space, he wasn’t an active part of it and was just an observer.