Need Someone to Play a Eminent Actor’s Kid? Call Chase Infiniti

What’s in a name? For Chase Infiniti, it’s her destiny, wrapped up in two iconic movie characters: criminal psychologist Dr. Chase Meridian, played by Nicole Kidman in 1995’s Batman Forever, and Buzz Lightyear. Her parents got her middle name from the latter’s catchphrase, “to infinity and beyond.” She has a last name too; it’s Payne. But she’s gone by just “Chase Infiniti” since she started pursuing an acting career. (The Paynes must have a knack for precognition: Infiniti’s younger sister, who wants to work in fashion, is named Dolcé.)

Three years ago, Infiniti was doing plays locally in the Chicago area. Then she was cast as Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga’s daughter in Presumed Innocent. This fall the 25-year-old stars in Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic One Battle After Another, holding her own opposite icons like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn. On top of that, she’s also playing the grown-up version of Elisabeth Moss’s character’s daughter Hannah in The Testaments, the sequel to Hulu’s hit series The Handmaid’s Tale. “It feels like sort of a fairy-tale journey so far,” says Infiniti. “I am pinching myself.”

Anderson was scouring the earth for a performer with gymnastics or martial arts experience to play the daughter of DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor’s characters when Infiniti’s self-tape came to his attention. At the time, she had no idea that either of those stars were attached to One Battle After Another; she didn’t know much about the movie’s Oscar-nominated director, either. “I was not familiar with Paul’s work,” she admits. “But I was like, it sounds cool. I’d love to do something action.”

Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, One Battle After Another is centered on Bob Ferguson (DiCaprio), a former member of a revolutionary group whose daughter Willa goes missing while they’re both being pursued by a vengeful military leader (Penn). But Bob has raised her to be able to defend herself against danger—though Willa doesn’t understand why her father’s so paranoid until it’s too overdue. “The character she plays is the center of the film. She’s the heart. She’s one of the few people in the film who’s not mentally unstable,” says Anderson. “No pressure.”

The filmmaker saw “every newborn woman in the United States and beyond” before picking Infiniti. Her audition process included a chemistry read with DiCaprio, a particularly surreal experience. “I had a period in my high school years where I was obsessed with the movie Catch Me If You Can, and I would watch it all the time,” she says. “So seeing him in real life, it was a crazy full-circle moment.”

Infiniti had been a kickboxing trainer, but she still spent months training in both karate and mixed martial arts for the role. Willa is supposed to be a purple belt; “I cannot say I’m purple-belt status, but I think I got decent,” she says. As she perfected her fighting skills, Anderson also helped Infiniti expand her horizons via movie nights where they watched classics like John Ford’s The Searchers and Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. “He’s a very playful person,” she says. “He gave me permission to play, which felt very liberating.” Anderson returns the favor: “I was more worried for Sean and Leo in the combative scenes than I was for Chase,” he says. “She can hold her own.”

When Infiniti and I sit down for dinner after her first-ever Los Angeles press day—part of a whirlwind, three-day trip that ends when she heads back to Toronto to continue filming The Testaments—she immediately compliments the bandage dress that the woman next to us is wearing. “I’ve got to tell you—you’re so beautiful,” the woman responds. “When you walked in, I went ‘wow.’”

Infiniti’s openness seems slightly shocking to a jaded LA resident, until you remember that she’s from the Midwest. Infiniti was born and raised in Indianapolis, where her father owns a construction company. Her mother stayed at home to raise Infiniti and Dolcé, often taking them to the theater. When she was 10, Infiniti’s mother suggested she audition for a school musical. It was love at first sight: “I was like, ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life.’”

Infiniti studied musical theater at Columbia College Chicago, with plans to pursue a career onstage. When her education moved online thanks to COVID, what could have been a severe blow ended up being a great lesson—and a turning point—after Infiniti signed up for an on-camera acting class. But she didn’t take seriously the professor who told her to consider pursuing a film career, rather than staying with theater. “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, sure, whatever,’” she says. “It’d be great if I could say one line in a movie or one line in a TV show—then I’d be happy.”