Eames Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur, thank you!
Played by Tom Hardy 
Inception (2010) · 81 quotes
Inception (2010) · 81 quotes
Tied for 3rd most-quoted character in Inception (2010): in 22 of its 81 quotes
Most scenes with: Cobb (17), Arthur (10), Ariadne (5)
You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. [hefts a huge grenade launcher]
More lines from Eames
1 quote Eames Scenes with Eames
20 scenes[to Eames, regarding his gambling chips]
Rub them together all you want, they're not going to breed.
Eames You never know.
Let me get you a drink.
Eames [Eames loses his money]
You're buying.
Eames Piss off
How's your handwriting?
Eames Versatile
Good.
Eames [To Cashier]
Thank you very much.
Inception. Now, before you bother telling me it's impossible, let me.
Eames No, it's perfectly possible. It's just bloody difficult.
Interesting. Because Arthur keeps telling me it can't be done
Eames Hmm. Arthur. You still working with that stick in the mud?
He is good at what he does, right?
Eames Oh, he's the best but he has no imagination
Not like you
Eames Listen, if you're gonna perform inception, you need imagination.
Let me ask you something. Have you done it before?
Eames We tried it. Uh, we got the idea in place, but it didn't take
You didn't plant it deep enough?
Eames No, it's not just about depth. You need the simplest version of the idea in order for it to grow naturally in your subject's mind. It's a very subtle art. So, what is this idea that you need to plant?
We need the heir of a major corporation to dissolve his father's empire
Eames Well you see right there you have various political motivations and anti-monopolistic sentiments and so forth. But all of that stuff, it's um.... It's really at the mercy of your subject's prejudice, you see? What you have to do is start at the absolute basic.
Which is what?
Eames The relationship with the father. [Cobb gives a look of approval]. Do you have a chemist?
No, not yet
Eames Right. Okay, well, there's a man here, Yusuf. He, uh, formulates his own versions of the compounds
Why, don't you take me there?
Eames Once you've lost your tail. The man at the bar.
Cobol engineering. That price on my head, was that dead or alive?
Eames Don't remember. Let's see if he starts shooting.
Run interference. I'll meet you downstairs in the bar in, say, uh, say half an hour?
Eames Back here?
It's the last place they'd suspect
Eames [Chuckles]
All right.
You are seeking a chemist?
Yes.
To formulate compounds for a job?
And to go into the field with us.
No, I rarely go into the field, Mr. Cobb.
Well, we'd need you there to tailor compounds specific to our needs.
Which are?
Great depth.
A dream within a dream? Two levels?
Not possible. That many dreams within dreams is too unstable.
It is possible. You just have to add a sedative.
A powerful sedative....How many team members?
Five.
Six...The only way to know you've done the job is if I go in with you.
Eames There's no room for tourists on a job like this, Mr. Saito.
This time, it seems there is.
This, I think, is a good place to start. I use it everyday.
What for?
Here, I'll show you... [Yusuf grabs his keys, then gives it second thoughts]...Perhaps you will not want to see.
...After you.
Eames [Cobb, Eames, Saito, and Yusuf enter a room with a dozen dreaming people]
Ten, twelve all connected. Bloody hell.
They come every day to share the dream. [An old man slaps one of the dreamers, who does not wake] You see? Very stable.
How long do they dream for?
Three, four hours, each day.
In dream time?
With this compound? About 40 hours, each and every day.
Why do they do it?
Tell him, Mr. Cobb.
After a while it becomes the only way you can dream.
Do you still dream, Mr. Cobb?
Eames They come here every day to sleep?
Old Man
No. They come to be woken up. The dream has become their reality. Who are you to say otherwise, sir?
Robert Fischer, heir to the Fischer Morrow energy conglomerate.
What's your problem with this Mr. Fischer?
That's not your concern.
Mr. Saito, this isn't your typical corporate espionage. You asked me for Inception. I do hope you understand the gravity of that request...Now, the seed that we plant in this man's mind will grow into an idea. This idea will define him. It may come to change...Well, it may come to change everything about him.
We're the last company standing between them and total energy dominance. And we can no longer compete. Soon, they'll control the energy supply of half the world. In effect, they become a new superpower...The world needs Robert Fischer to change his mind.
Eames That's where we come in...How is Robert Fischer's relationship with his father?
Rumor is the relationship is quite complicated.
Well, we can't work based solely on rumor, can we?
Eames Can you get me access to this man here? Browning. Fischer Senior's right-hand man. Fischer Junior's godfather.
It should be possible, if you can get the right references.
Eames References are something of a specialty for me, Mr. Saito.
Eames The vultures are circling. The sicker Maurice Fischer becomes, the more powerful Peter Browning becomes. I've had ample opportunity to observe Browning, adopt his physical presence, to study his mannerisms, and so on and so forth. So now in the first layer of the dream I can impersonate Browning. And suggest concepts to Fischer's conscious mind. Then when we take him a level deeper, his own projection of Browning should – should feed that right back to him.
So, he gives himself the idea.
Eames Precisely. That's the only way it'll stick. It has to seem self-generated.
Eames, I am impressed.
Eames [laughs]
Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur. Thank you.
[The team devises the strategy for the inception]
"I will split up my father's empire." Now, this is obviously an idea that Robert himself will choose to reject. Which is why we need to plant it deep in his subconscious. The subconscious is motivated by emotion, right? Not reason. We need to find a way to translate this into an emotional concept.
How do you translate a business strategy into an emotion?
That's what we're here to figure out, right. Now Robert's relationship with his father is stressed, to say the least.
Eames Well can we run with that? We could suggest him breaking up his fathers company as a "screw you" to the old man.
No, cause I think positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time. We all yearn for reconciliation, for catharsis. We need Robert Fischer to have a positive emotional reaction to all this.
Eames Alright, well, try this? "My father accepts that I want to create for myself, not follow in his footsteps."
That might work.
Might? Were gonna need to do a little better than "might".
Eames [turning towards him]
Thank you for your contribution, Arthur.
Forgive me for wanting a little specificity, Eames. [Eames looks confused, saying nothing] Specificity?!
Inception's not about being specific. When we get inside his mind, we're gonna have to work with what we find.
Eames [The team are standing in the first constructed dream level, an empty city]
On the top level, we open up his relationship with his father. Say, "I will not follow in my father's footsteps". Then, the next level down, we feed him "I will create something for myself". Then, by the time we hit the bottom level, we bring out the big guns:
My father doesn't want me to be him.
Eames Exactly.
The compound we'll be using to share the dream creates a very clear connection between dreamers whilst actually accelerating brain function.
In other words, it gives us more time on each level.
Brain function in the dream will be about 20 times normal. When you enter a dream within that dream, the effect is compounded. It's three dreams, that's 10 hours times 20--
Eames [interrupting]
I'm sorry, math was never my strong subject. How much time is that?
It's a week the first level down, Six months the second level down, The third level--
That's 10 years. Who'd would want to be stuck in a dream for ten years?
Depends on the dream.
So, once we've made the plant, how do we get out? I'm hoping you have something more elegant in mind than shooting me in the head?
A kick.
What's a kick?
Eames This, Ariadne, would be a kick. [kicks Arthur's chair; Arthur flails but manages to right himself]
It's that feeling of falling you get that jolts you awake. It snaps you out of the dream.
Are we going to feel a kick with this kind of sedation?
Ahh, that's the clever part. I customize the sedative to leave inner ear function unimpaired. That way, however deep the sleep, the sleeper still feels falling, or tipping.
The trick is to synchronize a kick that can penetrate all three levels.
We could use the musical countdown to synchronize the different kicks.
Eames [The team are discussing a method to get Fischer by himself]
He hasn't got any surgery scheduled, no dental, nothing.
Wasn't he supposed to have a knee operation?
Eames Nothing. Nothing that they'll put him under for, anyway. We need at least a good ten hours.
Sydney to Los Angeles. One of the longest flights in the world. He makes it every two weeks.
He must be flying privately.
Not if there were unexpected maintenance with his plane...
It would have to be a 747.
Why is that?
Cause on a 747 the pilots up top, and the first class cabin is in the nose, so no one would walk through. But you'd have to buy out the entire cabin. And the first class flight attendant.
I bought the airline. [Everyone looks at him incredulously. Awkwardly;] It seemed neater.
Looks like we have our 10 hours...Ariadne? Terrific work, by the way.
[Everyone has just entered Yusuf's dream, a city in a heavy downpour]
You couldn't have peed before you went under?
Sorry.
Eames A bit too much free champagne before takeoff, eh, Yusuf?
Well, we know he's going to be looking for a taxi in this weather.
Eames Yeah, I'm fine, I'm okay. [pause] And Fischer's okay. Unless he gets carsick.
[After Saito has been shot in the first dream layer]
Get Fischer in the backroom now. [Opens car door] Get him in the backroom. Move. What the hell happened?..Has he been shot? Is he dying?
I don't know.
Jesus Christ.
Where were you what happened to you?
We were blocked by a freight train.
I didn't!
Then where'd it come from?
Let me ask you a question: why the hell were we ambushed? Those were not normal projections, they've been trained, for God's sake!
How could he be trained?
Fischer has had an extractor teach his subconscious to defend itself. His subconscious has militarized. It should have shown in the research. I'm sorry.
When why the hell didn't it?!
Calm down.
Don't tell me to calm down! This was your job, God damn it! This was your responsibility! You were meant to check Fischer's background thoroughly! We are not prepared to deal with this type of security!
We have dealt with some security before! We'll be a little more careful, and we'll be fine!
This was not a part of the plan! [on Saito] He's dying, for God's sake!
Eames [Eames approaches with a gun and it aims it at Saito]
I'm putting him out of his misery.
Don't do that! [shoves him back] Don't do that.
Eames [exasperated]
He's in agony. I'm waking him up.
No. It won't wake him up.
Eames What do you mean, "it won't wake him up"? If we die in a dream, we wake up.
Not from this. [everyone looks at him] We're too heavily sedated to wake up that way.
Eames So, what happens when we die?
We drop into Limbo.
Limbo?
Unconstructed dream space.
Well, what the hell is down there?
Just raw, infinite subconscious. Nothing is down there. Except for whatever that might have been left behind by whoever's sharing the dream who was trapped down there before. Which in our case, is just you.
But how long could we be stuck there?
Not even think about waking up until –
Eames How long?!
Decades! It could be infinite! I don't know! [motioning to Cobb] Ask him, he's the one who's been there!
Eames [Saito is moved upstairs]
Great. [to Cobb, sarcastic] Thank you. So, now we're in Fischer's mind battling his own private army. And, if we get killed, we'll all be lost in Limbo until our brains turn to scrambled egg. Hm?
[Cobb says nothing and walks away]
Someone got First Aid? [Lays Saito on table, then turns to Cobb] So, you knew about these risks and you didn't tell us?
There weren't meant to be any risks. I didn't know we'd be dealing with a load of gunfire.
You had no right.
This is the only way to go three layers deep.
You trusted him? When he promised you half his share?
No! [beat] His whole share. Besides, he said he'd done it before.
What, with Mal? Because that worked so good?!
It had nothing to do with you. I did what I had to to get back to my children.
Eames So you led us into a war zone with no way out?
There is a way out. We continue on with the job, and we do it as fast as possible and we get out using the kick, just like before.
Eames Forget it. We go any deeper, we just raise the stakes. I am sitting this one out on this level boys.
Fischer's security is surrounding this place as we speak. Ten hours of flight time is a week at this level. That means each and everyone of us will be killed. That I can guarantee you. We have no other choice but to continue on and do it as fast as possible. Downwards is the only way forwards. [To Eames] Get ready. [To Arthur] You, come on. Let's go shake him up.
Eames That boy's relationship with his father is even worse than we imagined.
This helps us how?
The stronger the issues, the more powerful the catharsis.
How are you going to reconcile them if they're so estranged?
Eames Well, I'm working on that, aren't I?
Move fast. Projections are closing in quick. [he loads an assault rifle] We gotta break out of here before we're totally boxed in.
We need to shift his animosity from his father to his godfather.
We're going to destroy his one positive relationship?
Eames No, we repair his relationship with his father whilst exposing his godfather's true nature. We should charge Fischer a lot more than Saito for this job.
[The team is entering Fischer's subconscious]
Wait, whose subconscious are we going into, exactly?
We're going into Fischer's. But I told him it was Browning so he can be a part of our team.
That's right.
Eames Security is going to run you down hard.
And I will lead them on a merry chase.
Eames Make sure to be here in time for the kick –
Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.
Eames What happened?
Mal killed Fischer.
Eames So that it, then? We failed?
We're done. I'm sorry.
Eames Well, it's not me that doesn't get back to my family, is it? It's a shame, I really wanted to know what was going to happen in there. I swear we had this one.
Let's set the charges.
Wait, there's still another way! We just have to follow Fischer down there.
Eames Not enough time.
No, but there will be enough time down there, and we will find him! As soon as Arthur's music kicks in, use the defibrillator to revive him. We can give him his own kick down below. You get him in there (the vault). You blow the building, and we all ride the kick back up the layers.
Eames Saito, I need you to take care of Fischer while I go set some charges, okay?
Eames Don't be silly.
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