Tenet is “an in-law to Inception“, a star of the forthcoming Christopher Nolan movie has revealed.

John David Washington, who portrays the film’s secret agent protagonist, said the film is linked in some way to Nolan’s 2010 time-bending film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

• Read more: Christopher Nolan’s new film ‘Tenet’ – release date, plot details, cast and everything we know so far

“I’d say [Tenet] is an in-law to Inception,” Washington told Esquire in a new interview. “They’re related by marriage. They get together for Thanksgivings, family barbecues, like that kind of thing. Other than that, one lives in Europe, the other one lives in Compton.”

Tenet, which also stars Robert Pattinson and Michael Caine, has long been rumoured to be  connected to Inception in some way. Nolan’s latest film appears to centre on the bending of time.

Caine admitted earlier this year that he isn’t entirely sure what Tenet is about. Pattinson, meanwhile, said recently that the mysterious film is “so complicated; if it wasn’t Chris Nolan doing it, you’d be like, ‘This is an impossible movie’.”

Nolan had described the follow-up to his 2017 war epic Dunkirk as an “event film”, and it looks set to be the first film to be shown in cinemas when they re-open after following the coronavirus pandemic.

Tenet is set for release on July 17.