Chase Infiniti may be sharing the screen with Leonardo DiCaprio in her latest film, but even she admits she hadn’t seen one of his most famous movies until fairly recently. The One Battle After Another star opened up about her early conversations with DiCaprio, the surprising gap in her movie-watching history, and why one of his other films has always meant more to her.
Chase Infiniti reveals which Leonardo DiCaprio movie she didn’t see until recently
While talking with PEOPLE, Chase Infiniti revealed a surprising confession that she didn’t watch Titanic until just last year. The iconic 1997 Leo DiCaprio classic somehow slipped past her for decades. Speaking ahead of the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards on January 10, 2026, she laughed it off, saying, “Do you know what’s crazy? I didn’t watch Titanic until last year. I had not seen it.”
Instead, the DiCaprio movie that really stuck with her while growing up was Catch Me If You Can. The 2002 Steven Spielberg film, where Leo plays real-life con man Frank Abagnale Jr. opposite Tom Hanks, was her go-to. “That’s the Leo film for me, she said, adding that she watched it when she was younger and still absolutely loves it.
That mutual love for Catch Me If You Can even helped break the ice between Chase Infiniti and Leonardo DiCaprio on set. While filming One Battle After Another, the movie became one of their first real conversations.
Infiniti plays Willa, the daughter of revolutionaries played by DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor in the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed film. She shared that conversing about the movie and even its stage musical version came up naturally while they were working together.
Infiniti also opened up about going through a long audition process that stretched nearly five to six months. She first sent in a self-tape while she was busy shooting her screen debut in Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent.
Walking into meetings with DiCaprio and director Paul Thomas Anderson could’ve been nerve-racking. In a sit-down with Today Infiniti said both were “so kind,” adding that she’s “so grateful for the entire experience.”
Chase Infiniti is living the dream she never fully believed would come true.
The 24-year-old Indianapolis native makes her feature debut in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” stepping into the role of Willa Ferguson, a teenager caught between family legacy and personal identity when a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue her after an enemy resurfaces 16 years later.
“It’s half Paul and half me,” Infiniti says of Willa’s character. “Half of her comes from his writing, and the other half I brought from my own life and experiences.”
Infiniti’s path to Anderson’s sprawling militia epic wasn’t straightforward. Raised in Indianapolis, she studied musical theater at Columbia College in Chicago. Despite her passion, she didn’t land many roles in college productions, instead finding opportunities in summer stock and community theaters. “I never thought this would happen. I would’ve been happy with even one line in a movie,” she says, recalling her early dreams.
Infiniti introduces herself to Hollywood, and the rest of the cinema loving world on the season 12 premiere of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast. Listen below.
Her name, a mash-up of Nicole Kidman’s Chase Meridian from “Batman Forever” and Pixar’s “Toy Story,” feels oddly prophetic for an actor now stepping into Hollywood’s spotlight.
In “One Battle After Another,” Willa is no stock teenager. With a purple belt in martial arts and a razor-sharp sense of agency, she emerges as one of Anderson’s most compelling young protagonists. “She’s assertive, but not pretentious. She’s hopeful. I think she represents the possibility of a better future,” Infiniti explains.
Infiniti prepared for the role by traveling with Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio (who plays her father) to Eureka, Calif. “Meeting people in that town helped me lock Willa in. I noticed how communities interacted, and that grounded her for me.”
Infiniti shares the screen with DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn. A key sequence with Penn, in which Willa undergoes a tense DNA test, became a lesson in restraint and reactive acting. “It felt like sparring,” she describes. “He’s intimidating, but Paul [Thomas Anderson] encouraged us to lean into that raw, natural reaction. It was exhilarating.”
Infiniti is particularly effusive in her admiration for both Hall and Taylor during our sitdown. Speaking about Taylor’s performance, she said she was “so amazing” in bringing the character of Perfidia to life, making her “even more colorful” than what appeared on the page.
When it came to Hall, Infiniti emphasized how much strength and subtlety she brought to the role of Deandra. “Deandra is a quiet character in a sense, but she’s not quiet,” she asserts. “She really is the most central force of strength that’s in the film, and she does a fantastic job of almost honing in every character and being a mother to Willa — a mother that she never got to have.”
Despite the starry company, Infiniti admits she’s still adjusting. “Half of me thought I could be here, half of me thought I couldn’t. I had no industry connections, no on-camera work before this. Paul literally hired me without seeing my first job,” she says. “Now I’m on this press tour and it’s surreal.”
Infiniti’s real-life parents, meanwhile, are taking it all in. “My mom cries every time she sees the trailer. There’s a shot of Lockjaw holding Willa’s baby picture and she always says, ‘That’s my baby.’”
Though she’s only just arrived, Infiniti is already dreaming of future roles. She’d love to work with Greta Gerwig or Steven Spielberg — and she’s vocal about her passion for movie musicals. “If they ever adapt ‘Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812’ into a film, I don’t even need to book it. I just want to be seen for Natasha,” she declares.
As for advice to her younger self, Infiniti borrows wisdom passed down to her: “You have nothing to prove, but everything to show.”
Favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film (other than “One Battle After Another”)? “Boogie Nights.”
Favorite Leonardo DiCaprio performance? “Catch Me If You Can.”
Favorite Benicio del Toro movie? “The Usual Suspects.”
Favorite horror film? “Get Out.” (though she admits she’s a self-described “scaredy cat.”)
Movie that makes you cry every time? “Toy Story 3.”
Funniest movie of all time? “One Battle After Another.” (“It’s an action comedy!” she laughs.)
Director you’d most like to work with next? “Steven Spielberg, Greta Gerwig, or the Daniels. Honestly, anyone who wants to see me.”
Also featured on this episode is Dwayne Johnson, star and producer of Benny Safdie’s dramatic biopic “The Smashing Machine.”
Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta, Jenelle Riley and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts.
Tagline: “Some search for battle, others are born into it…”
Better Tagline: “Maybe it’s … Pyncholine.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Bob (Leonard DiCaprio) and Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) are revolutionary lovers, working with their fellow members of the French 75 (not the cocktail) to free immigrant detainees and blow up government/right-wing headquarters. Perfidia isn’t mother material, however, and bails on Bob and their infant daughter Willa. Fast forward 16 years, and Bob and Willa (Chase Infiniti) are living an uneasy under-the-radar life. That changes when a figure from the past, the fanatical Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), has a sudden personal interest in their family.
“Critical” Analysis: Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t much like making movies set in the 21st century. Aside from 2002’s Punch Drunk Love (which really shouldn’t count, since the subplot adapts an event that took place in 1999) and two set contemporaneously with their release (Hard Eight, Magnolia) both came out way back in the 1900s.
That trend ends in a big way with One Battle After Another, which seizes fiercely upon current events to depict an America bent to the breaking point by fear and hatred, but still possessing the capacity to change. That representation is personified in DiCaprio’s Bob, whose post-revolutionary years have been taken up with substance abuse, nostalgia, and neglectful parenting. It isn’t until Willa disappears that he’s forced into action.
It’s only recently that DiCaprio has loosened up with his roles (winning an Oscar will do that), but Bob isn’t even as half-assed effective as OUATIH’s Rick Dalton with a flamethrower. His initial efforts to track down Willa (and a charger for his 1G phone) are only occasionally effective because of assistance from fellow subversives working stealthily in the community. He is, not to beat around the bush, a goof.
Chief among these is Sergio (Benicio Del Toro), Willa’s sensei and an organizer of Borrego Springs’ version of the Underground Railroad. Del Toro is delightfully laconic, and his Zen idiosyncrasies are a nice counterpoint to the freakier performances of DiCaprio and Penn.
Because there’s little in the way of subtlety here. Anderson is on record as wanting to make a movie of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, having already loosely adapted the author’s V. for The Master and, more faithfully, Inherent Viceto great effect in 2015. And if anything, the director is even more on the nose here in bringing Pynchon’s balance of conspiracy and chaos.
For example, the white supremacist cabal behind America’s pumped-up crusade against — not just immigrants, but all people of color — is as sinister as it is ridiculous. Their focus on “native born” allies and strict policy against interracial relations, which directly leads to “Bedford Forrest (look him up) Medal of Honor” winner Lockjaw’s actions. Meanwhile the revolutionaries, while certainly on the side of the angels, are only marginally more competent.
That said, Anderson isn’t trying to make friends. The powers that be are nakedly racist and the opening scenes, showcasing Perfidia’s (full name Perfidia Beverly Hills) rampages and command of the screen, might as well come with screen prompts for the audience to yell, “Fuck yeah!”
One Battle After Another is as audacious as it is funny. And it *is* funny. Penn’s post-Spicoli output hasn’t exactly been light-hearted, but his Lockjaw — with his Simple Jack haircut — is marvelously twitchy, from his opening credits boner (don’t ask) to his not at all ignominious, uh, finale. Del Toro effortlessly commands every scene he’s in, while Taylor is as intimidating as she is formidable.
But it’s Infiniti who’s a real discovery, helping turn Bob into something wholly alien to DiCaprio; a father figure. As much as OBAA is a breakneck adventure, barely letting up for its almost 3-hour running time (the climactic car chase is somehow not overindulgent), it’s also a study in fatherhood and nontraditional families. It seems a revolution takes a village, too. And One Battle After Another is PTA’s best since Inherent Vice.
One Battle After Another reviews are beginning to come in, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film is getting massive praise ahead of its release on September 26, 2025.
What are the One Battle After Another reviews saying?
On Rotten Tomatoes, One Battle After Another debuted its reviews today, and debuted with a whopping 97% score on the aggregator site. The Leonardo DiCaprio-led movie is being hailed as another masterpiece from Anderson, with some even calling it the best movie of his illustrious career.
Elsewhere, Rolling Stone’s David Fear hailed the movie as a “humanistic masterpiece.” “Anderson’s humanistic masterpiece of a movie says: You fight it with love. That’s the end game. That’s how you retain your decency and sanity. That’s the only way you protect the future, and change it. That’s how you live to battle another day.” ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim also praised the movie, noting that it “crackles with energy, wit, and vision.”
The movie is reported to be “somewhat inspired” by a 1990 novel called Vineland by Thomas Pynchon.
“Here, in an Orwellian 1984, Zoyd Wheeler and his daughter Prairie search for Prairie’s long-lost mother, a Sixties radical who ran off with a narc,” a description of the book reads. “Vineland is vintage Pynchon, full of quasi-allegorical characters, elaborate unresolved subplots, corny songs (‘Floozy with an Uzi’), movie spoofs (Pee-wee Herman in The Robert Musil Story), and illicit sex (including a macho variation on the infamous sportscar scene in V.).”
