Michael Caine reveals the truth about the ending of 'Inception'

Michael Caine cleared up nearly a decade of confusion surrounding Inception during a London screening of the film.

The 85-year-old actor stood before an eager audience at Somerset House, where the 2010 film was being shown, to explain the film's open-ended ending once and for all.

According to SyFy, he admitted: "When I got the script of Inception, I was a bit puzzled by it, and I said to him [director Christopher Nolan], 'I don't understand where the dream is'."

"I said, 'When is it the dream and when is it reality?' He said, 'Well, when you're in the scene it's reality.' So get that — if I'm in it, it's reality. If I'm not in it, it's a dream."

In the final scene, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) woke up after the inception of Robert Michael Fischer (Cillian Murphy), who needed to dissolve his dad's company, or so Dom was told by both his boss and Saito (Ken Watanabe), Robert's top competitor.

If the job was done successfully, Saito promised to clear Dom's name and convince American officials he hadn't killed his wife, (played by Marion Cotillard) who committed suicide but framed her husband for her murder. With the charges out of the way, Dom could return home to his two children.

He arrived home and saw his children playing in the garden, as he had done many times in his dreams, so much so that he wondered if it was real. Dom spins his totem — an item people performing inceptions use to distinguish between dreams and reality — and the movie ended with his totem spinning.

Dom earlier revealed in the movie that in reality, his totem — in his case a mini top — eventually toppled over. The screen faded to black before audiences ever found out whether he was living out a real-world moment or a dream.

But now, because Michael Caine appeared in the scene also, we now know it was real after what the actor revealed.

This article was first published on dailymail.co.uk and is republished here with permission.