🎧 Chase Infiniti Got Leo on TikTok. Now She’s Coming for Oscar
I talk to the breakout star of ‘One Battle After Another,’ who commands a movie set — and social feed — with fearless ease
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It was Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio, in addition to other co-stars, who taught Chase Infiniti how to relax and have fun on the set of her first-ever film, One Battle After Another. But it was Infiniti who taught them to stop running away from an iPhone camera.
“Before we started the press tour, Paul and Leo were both like, ‘You need to be on TikTok duty,’” 25-year-old Infiniti remembers. ”I was like, okay, if you guys are ready to make TikToks, I can do that. It took a bit to get where we ended up, but I’m so happy with the amount that we made, and I think they also had so much fun making them, even if I don’t know that they’ll fully admit it.”
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Infiniti’s boundless energy in those videos — young and confident, ready to literally step past the older generation if she needs to — is very evident in her One Battle After Another character, Willa, a teenager raised in Northern California by DiCaprio’s former revolutionary. Sneaking a phone past her dad’s watchful eye and talking back to even the most menacing authority figures, Willa is in some ways a typical teen; then again, she’s also got martial arts skills and a survival instinct straight from the rebellious mother she doesn’t remember, played by Teyana Taylor. As anyone who’s seen One Battle After Another knows well, Willa is extraordinary — and so is the actress who plays her. It’s no wonder Infiniti is already a top Oscar contender for best actress, even though it was only officially revealed after our conversation last week that she’ll campaign in the category.
As Infiniti tells me in our conversation on this week’s Prestige Junkie podcast, the initial script for One Battle After Another included even more of Willa’s martial arts skills, which was part of why it took so long for Anderson to find the right actress to play her. Fun as that would have been to see, anyone who has seen the film’s thrilling car chase finale would probably agree with Infiniti’s assessment that it all turned out for the best. After being kidnapped by paramilitary forces led by Sean Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw, Willa escapes and manages to drive a car while handcuffed, with both her pursuer and her father tailing behind her.
“There was originally a version where a lot more martial arts came into play, where you would actually see her putting it into use more than she did,” Infiniti says. “But where we ended up had just as much of a strong effect. It’s not realistic that you’re gonna be fighting one-on-one versus somebody who is also as proficient in karate as you. And I think losing that structured element really emphasized that she is on her own. She is putting her skills to the best use possible, the way that she knows how, in an uncontrolled environment.”
Infiniti spoke to me while on the set of her next project, which she wasn’t even sure she was allowed to tell me about — that’s how new all of this feels. Born Chase Infiniti Payne and raised in Indianapolis, Infiniti has maybe been destined for stardom from the start. Her parents named her after Nicole Kidman’s character in Batman Forever (Chase Meridian), and they drew inspiration from Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear for her middle name (Infiniti, as in Buzz’s catchphrase, “To infinity and beyond”). The actress only booked her first role — as Jake Gyllenhaal’s onscreen daughter on the Apple TV series Presumed Innocent — in 2023, and her next television project is leading The Testaments, a spinoff of the Emmy Award-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale. Still, with so much heat — and major stars like DiCaprio and Gyllenhaal already as scene partners — she did tell me about who’s giving her good advice at this thrilling juncture in her career, and how listening to her gut is going to guide her forward.
Hear it all on today’s new Prestige Junkie episode, which also includes a return appearance from Richard Lawson, looking back at this year’s New York Film Festival and assessing the Oscar hopes for Bradley Cooper’s latest, Is This Thing On? To watch the video of my chat with Richard, make sure to subscribe to Prestige Junkie After Party, where, for just $5 a month, you can see conversations like this one and watch special bonus podcast episodes — including one coming this Friday with a pair of surprise guests. It’s a good deal!