Kate Winslet vs Marion Cotillard in Mal

Kate Winslet was approached for the role of Mal. Nolan spent years, like almost 10 years on the script after realizing that he needed to make the character's emotional motivations central to this story. Marion Cotillard is a very different actress than Kate Winslet. And so the casting that he went with that they went with, I think, allowed him to at least pretend that there was something more complex and complicated going on there with that character.