LOS ANGELES?Now that virtually everyone on earth has seen director Chris Nolan?s ?Inception,? we are featuring actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt?s explanation on how he prepared and did some of the remarkable stunts, especially the much-talked-about gravity-defying hotel corridor scene.

While Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe and others in the cast had their share of stunts, Joseph had the most challenging ones in the movie about a team of modern-day warriors who are able to join in the dreams of other people. The star of the charming ?(500) Days of Summer? had to prepare rigorously for his acrobatic role in ?Inception,? which was shot mostly in a vast soundstage in England.

?The stunt team I worked with for months actually reminded me of kids sometimes,? said Joseph, looking preppy in a V-necked sweater. ?It felt like a bunch of 10-year-olds getting to realize their desires and fantasies to defy gravity. I was so happy and thankful I got to do it.?

He recalled having to start physical training before shooting in England. He said actors normally do that to ?look a certain way? for a movie.

But for ?Inception,? Joseph said, ?I had to train so that I could actually pull off the stuff which is, to me, a much more fulfilling reason to go to the gym than to just look good.?

After arriving in England, Joseph spent two-and-a-half weeks of straight combat training.

The hotel hallway scene, where the gravity-defying fight sequence would appear, was shot on rotating sets.

Did these sets make him feel like he?s on a hamster wheel?

?They built that corridor three times,? said Joseph. ?One, as a normal set; two, they took this whole corridor and turned it on its side so it?s like a 10-story tower that we were shooting on and they would take the camera, shoot them up and we would be in wires going down but because the camera?s facing that way, it looks like a normal corridor.

?Then there was the third version that spun. I remember one of the first meetings I ever had with Chris in LA. He showed me the model of this set that spun. Both he and Tom Struthers (stunt coordinator on ?Batman Begins? and ?The Dark Knight?) said it was going to be very hard and uncomfortable. I told them, ?I?m so happy to be doing this job. I promise you will never hear me complain once.??

Joseph smiled, his eyes narrowing into slits, when he recounted Chris instructing Tom in jest to get his promise ?in writing. But I held that promise. You could ask Chris. I did not complain because it was actually fun ??

There were a lot of techniques, Joseph revealed, on how he and his co-actors appeared weightless. ?I did some of the stunts on wires. Some of it was from that set that rotates 360 degrees, and some from various leveraging mechanisms but all of it was practical. There was nothing digital about that entire sequence which is one of the reasons why it is so compelling for audiences. It doesn?t feel like a video game. It feels like real life,? he said.

The former child actor explained that it took months to prepare and complete this sequence. He also figures in a fight scene in an elevator shaft.

?The elevator shaft wasn?t a real one, of course,? he said. ?Chris shoots a lot of his movies in this hangar where they used to build zeppelins back in World War I. There?s actually a lot of Gotham City that?s still there.?

Chris, whom we also interviewed earlier, praised the actor?s dedication. Joseph?s steady rise amid a string of acclaimed indie films got a big boost with the success of ?Inception? and the buzz on the athletic grace he displays in his difficult scenes.

Much of the technical success of those sequences, the filmmaker pointed out, ?is due to Joe?s commitment, physically. Wire work is very tough. We had wire rigs that would hang him from eight feet in the air upside down. He had to learn fight scenes that way. A bizarre sort of seesaw dolly rig held him by his hips. I would literally drive him around through the shot?move him up and down. For me, the fun of it was that pretty much every shot is a completely different rig.?

The 29-year-old will be seen next in ?Hesher,? in which his long-haired, often shirtless anarchist role is a complete turnaround from his dapper characters in ?Inception? and ?(500) Days of Summer.?

We are thrilled to hear that he is rumored to have a shot at walking again on the set of Gotham City, this time to work as The Riddler in Chris? ?Batman 3.? We hope Joseph gets the part.

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com.