{"id":621847,"date":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621847\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","slug":"chase-infiniti-and-christopher-briney-talk-the-julia-set-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621847\/","title":{"rendered":"Chase Infiniti and Christopher Briney Talk ‘The Julia Set’ (Exclusive)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA few years ago now, Chase Infiniti<\/a> \u2014\u00a0then an aspiring actress, grinding away and willing her first big job to materialize \u2014\u00a0auditioned for two projects the same week.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of them was One Battle After Another, the dizzying thriller that would go on to shower director Paul Thomas Anderson with Oscars and make Infiniti, fresh-faced and disarmingly awestruck, an overnight superstar. Cue a whirlwind awards season in which Hollywood all but bowed at the 26-year-old\u2019s feet: She came away with BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, Leonardo DiCaprio in her corner and a devoted fanbase of millions rooting for her next film.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat next film just so happens to be the other project she read for alongside One Battle, and Niki Byrne\u2019s The Julia Set has been just as weighty an experience for Infiniti as PTA\u2019s awards darling. \u201cOne Battle and The Julia Set have been in my life for about the same time,\u201d begins the rising star to The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cIt was one of those things that gave me butterflies the first time I read it, and it\u2019s hard to find the things that do that. But I\u2019m somebody that when I find something, I\u2019ll put everything into auditioning for it \u2014\u00a0to getting as close as I can to it. Because I know it\u2019s that special.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tByrne\u2019s coming-of-age story starring Infiniti, Christopher Briney<\/a>, Gillian Anderson<\/a>, Nina Hoss, Jason Isaacs, Alex Dillard and Nico Hiraga is earning its world premiere at TIFF<\/a> on Friday night, and it is decidedly special. The feature, repped in the U.S. by Gersh and internationally by HanWay Films, follows Infiniti as Julia, a mathematics student with untapped talent who is drafted into preparing for the country\u2019s most challenging math competition. She is swept off her feet by the dashing Pascal (Briney), a fellow student keen to break free from the shackles of his famously brilliant father (Isaacs). But Julia\u2019s gifts soon threaten Pascal\u2019s genius. It is a poignant, powerful tale of a young woman who comes to realize she is the lead character in her own story, anchored by a potent performance from Anderson as Anne, Pascal\u2019s mother, who was forced to abandon her own mathematical ambitions long ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd for Infiniti, who also serves as an executive producer on The Julia Set, it was a deeply personal \u2014\u00a0and empowering \u2014\u00a0journey. \u201cWhile I was reading it, I was like, \u2018Oh, I remember a point in my life where [I was] kind of scared to grow into what I\u2019m capable of,’\u201d she continues to THR. \u201cI remember when I was scared to show the world what I could actually do, and getting to see that in a world that is so far away from what I do, high-level mathematics, I thought that was really interesting to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt wasn\u2019t a smooth ride. There was a point in time when Infiniti was admittedly \u201cheartbroken\u201d because The Julia Set\u2018s shoot clashed with Hulu\u2019s The Testaments (a TV role that would earn the actress her first Emmy nomination). But she and Byrne had formed a close bond, kept in touch and when Infiniti told them, \u201cGuys, I really would love to be a part of this,\u201d Byrne and her crew made it work and pushed production back by a month.<\/p>\n

\n\tGrateful doesn\u2019t cover it \u2014 Infiniti was overjoyed. Though it was the same sense of chaos onboarding Briney, who was riding the stratospheric high of The Summer I Turned Pretty<\/a> and eager to carve out a career for himself in projects from distinctive, original filmmakers. \u201cI don\u2019t know what else to call it other than maybe a rush job,\u201d the 28-year-old laughs to THR ahead of the premiere. \u201cI know that they\u2019ve been trying to get this movie made for years, and I think there were a few different iterations of it that almost went into production and then didn\u2019t. And to my understanding, they lost their Pascal a few weeks before they started shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tChris Briney plays Pascal in The Julia Set.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAntonio Calvache<\/p>\n

\n\tBriney was flying to Vegas when a script landed in his inbox. \u201cMy manager was like, \u2018Can you just read this? Because it\u2019s really good.’\u201d At the time, he was actually looking forward to some richly deserved time off. \u201cAs soon as I finished it, I was like, \u2018Fuck, man. This is a special movie, and I\u2019ll do anything I can to be a part of it,’\u201d says Briney, his determination to work with Byrne echoing that of his co-star.<\/p>\n

\n\tA lot of the work for Briney \u2014\u00a0undertaken in a matter of weeks \u2014\u00a0was finding empathy for his character. Some audiences might leave The Julia Set believing Pascal to be the villain of Julia\u2019s narrative, but Briney and Byrne\u2019s discussions were focused on two talented people who were raised very differently. \u201cI\u2019ll leave it to other people to discuss whether or not his actions are forgivable and such,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the job was to find where I loved him and in all the ways that he was shaped by the world he was placed into. He\u2019s not devoid of blame and ignorance and the things we see him do, but he was not really set up for success in a social way. He was more just expected to be a great mathematician.\u201d Briney feels really bad for Pascal in many of those moments. \u201cI have a lot of love for this kid who just can\u2019t do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe can\u2019t help but gush over Byrne and the sense of freedom she cultivated across the 25-day shoot. \u201cCredit to Chase and to Niki for just being game to play,\u201d says Briney. \u201cI think it helps that we all really cared about this movie, and obviously I\u2019m too close to the source here, but meeting Niki and hearing the way that she wants to shape the world was a weight off my shoulders because I was like, \u2018Oh, I can put all my trust in you, and I can do my thing, and you will guide us in the right direction.\u2019 I don\u2019t want to speak for her, but I would imagine that Chase took the same sort of approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was also liberating for Infiniti was getting to flex some new muscles as an EP. She giggles thinking about how daunting the prospect initially seemed. \u201cI remember when I did my first job, I kept asking everyone what [their] job was. I couldn\u2019t really understand what a producer was, and it felt so foreign to me,\u201d she explains. \u201c[It was] almost like you would have to\u2026 not fear them,\u201d she pauses. \u201cBut you\u2019re like, \u2018I don\u2019t really understand them, so I\u2019m a bit scared of them.\u2019 At least that\u2019s like what it was when I was first starting out,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

\n\tComing away from The Julia Set, Infiniti is much more assured about the responsibilities of a producer. \u201cOver time, I\u2019ve learned how important a producer\u2019s job is \u2014\u00a0not only getting things happening on the day, but championing something,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was a way that I could vocalize needs and protect myself and protect my cast in a way that I hadn\u2019t experienced before.\u201d For example, she recalls pulling up a picture of what she\u2019d like Julia\u2019s hair to look like at school. \u201cSmall things like that,\u201d says Infiniti, \u201cbut also if a cast member had something they were struggling with or had a question about or that they felt a bit awkward bringing up, I could be a nice middleman and empower them to bring it up to production, or I could if they were comfortable with me doing it.\u201d She likens the experience to having a safety blanket on set.<\/p>\n

\n\tNaturally, with seasoned pros such as Anderson, Isaacs and Hoss around, not every actor would have been in need of a middleman. Both Infiniti and Briney confess to fawning over watching their seniors at work, and Briney says it was even a little Shakespearean. \u201cIt\u2019s marvellous and mind-blowing, and they just source it from different places, and they were all wonderfully kind,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had a moment watching it in the classroom and [Hoss] deliver these paragraphs of technical math speech. It felt like Shakespeare,\u201d he laughs. \u201cShe was wildly talented and it was really amazing to see up close.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInfiniti concurs with Briney on the work of Hoss, who plays their elusive, hard-to-impress math professor. \u201cShe has this ability to just completely pull you in. She could not even be saying anything in the scene, and she could just suck you in immediately. I just became so in love watching it,\u201d says Infiniti. \u201cI remember the days I would be there with Gillian and Jason, and they\u2019re the type of people that when you call action, everyone was up in [front of] the monitor and sucked into the scene, laser-focused on them. I\u2019m somebody who\u2019s always observing, always learning, asking questions,\u201d she adds, \u201cbut I was really struck with the confidence of movement that they had.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe\u2019s no stranger to A-list talent, having trodden an entire awards campaign alongside DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall. But the two shooting experiences are hard to compare because, oddly enough, The Julia Set was so much faster-paced. \u201c[On] One Battle we had 100 days of shooting and this might have been 30 or less,\u201d says Infiniti. \u201cLuckily, it didn\u2019t feel fast on the day because Niki would be there to make sure that if anybody \u2014 at any point \u2014 was rushing for an unnecessary reason, she would [say], \u2018We need to slow down. We have to make sure that we\u2019re minding the scene, we\u2019re minding the characters, doing justice by their words.\u2019 So not rushing the actors was always something that she was emphasizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tByrne\u2019s approach encapsulates exactly where Briney wants to go from here. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I can overstate it, but this movie is sort of all I\u2019ve ever wanted to do, and I knew that right after I read it,\u201d he tells THR. \u201cNiki has this profound sense of storytelling that I just wanted to be part of, and I think it\u2019s a great story. She\u2019s a phenomenal director. That\u2019s why I fell in love with movies, it was good directors and good writers and good storytelling,\u201d he says, adding that the small budget and intimate shoot made it feel like an independent movie. \u201cWe did it for ourselves in the moment, and now we get to share it, and I think that\u2019s where I find the most joy in this career,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s thrown for a loop when probed on other filmmakers he dreams of working with \u2014\u00a0there are simply too many. \u201cGreta Gerwig\u2019s doing such interesting things, Joachim Trier is proving his brilliance over and over in all his movies. And Ruben \u00d6stlund too. I could go on for days,\u201d says Briney.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe U.S. star has the hotly anticipated The Summer I Turned Pretty movie on its way. Just this summer, Prime Video and author-writer-director Jenny Han had to make a statement<\/a> requesting that fans stop crowding Briney and his co-stars on set. He tells us about his final outing as global heartthrob Conrad Fisher: \u201cI try to go into everything with the notion that we are doing it for ourselves. Because I think if you go into a job trying to service somebody else, you\u2019re doing a disservice to the project and the characters and the story. And obviously, we\u2019ve spent a lot of time with that world. So yeah, I hope people like it, but I think that we just buckled down and got it done, and I\u2019m grateful for all the things that it\u2019s brought to all of us and the people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBriney, who maintains he is not a natural mathematician \u2014\u00a0\u201cI thought I was\u2026 The past 10 years have not been kind to the math side of my brain\u201d \u2014\u00a0is arriving at his second TIFF. For Infiniti, it\u2019s her first film festival appearance ever. \u201cFor the most part, everyone\u2019s been like \u2018Don\u2019t forget to enjoy it,’\u201d she says about advice from those around her. \u201cI\u2019m excited. It\u2019s so hard to picture it when you haven\u2019t done it yet. That\u2019s what\u2019s going through my mind right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth Chase Infiniti and Christopher Briney are on the precipice of immense careers. With The Julia Set, they\u2019re just hoping that the love and care poured into this film shine through in front of a Toronto audience. \u201cI hope people discuss [being a product of your] environment,\u201d Briney adds. \u201cIt brings to light a lot of things that I think are easy to take for granted \u2014\u00a0the way you grew up, how the world works, but everybody grew up under their own circumstances, and I think this movie addresses that in a really interesting way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 2026 Toronto International<\/a> Film Festival runs Sept. 10-20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few years ago now, Chase Infiniti \u2014\u00a0then an aspiring actress, grinding away and willing her first big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,11603,47159,93,44607,61,1042,60,18968,1745,233943,237826,1998,276],"class_list":["post-621847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-chase-infiniti","tag-christopher-briney","tag-entertainment","tag-gillian-anderson","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-the-summer-i-turned-pretty","tag-tiff","tag-tiff-2026","tag-toronto-2026","tag-toronto-film-festival","tag-toronto-international-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}