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On December 4, the\u00a0IndieWire Honors Winter 2025 ceremony<\/a>\u00a0will\u00a0celebrate the creators and stars responsible<\/a>\u00a0for crafting some of the year\u2019s best films. Curated and selected by IndieWire\u2019s editorial team, IndieWire Honors<\/a> is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers behind films well worth toasting. In the days leading up to the Los Angeles event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews<\/a>\u00a0and tributes from their peers.<\/p>\n Has anybody had a better 2025 than Chase Infiniti<\/a>? This time last year, the Indianapolis native was a rising TV star with a single credit to her name: \u201cPresumed Innocent.\u201d She had yet to appear in a film<\/a>, but obsessive cinephiles were learning her name after news broke that she\u2019d be appearing in a still-untitled film with a mysterious plot from Paul Thomas Anderson<\/a>.<\/p>\n To say that a lot has changed since then would be an understatement. \u201cOne Battle After Another<\/a>,\u201d Infiniti\u2019s feature debut, is among the best-reviewed<\/a> films of 2025 and a widely accepted Oscar frontrunner. As Willa, the kidnapped daughter of revolutionaries, the newcomer more than holds her own among the film\u2019s cast of A-list stars. With the entire film resting on the familial relationship between her character and Leonardo DiCaprio\u2019s Bob Ferguson, Infiniti provides the perfect Gen Z foil to the aging revolutionary in Anderson\u2019s father-daughter epic. She traveled the world promoting the film with the likes of Anderson, DiCaprio, and Regina Hall, and now finds herself squarely positioned in the middle of the Best Actress race.<\/p>\n Infiniti, who will receive the Breakthrough Award at the 2025 IndieWire Honors, isn\u2019t taking any of it for granted. During a career-spanning conversation with IndieWire ahead of the ceremony on December 4, the actress was all smiles. Reflecting on her whirlwind year, Infiniti explained that she almost didn\u2019t pursue film acting at all: It took a pandemic that interrupted her study of live theater at Columbia College Chicago to convince her that Hollywood might be in her future.<\/p>\n \u201cI always say it was the best happy accident possible, because I don\u2019t think I would\u2019ve even considered a shift from theater if COVID hadn\u2019t happened,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything was put on Zoom, and I had taken two on-camera acting classes. I was like, \u2018Well, it\u2019s perfect. I\u2019m working with the confines of the box, so let me learn how to film a great self-tape and the foundations of that, and to storytell in a more subtle way.’\u201d<\/p>\n After landing her first role in the Apple TV series \u201cPresumed Innocent,\u201d Infiniti knew she needed a crash course in filmmaking. She took the opportunity to talk to every department to learn how the components of a TV set all come together.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was my introduction to a set, because I\u2019d never been on set before,\u201d she said. \u201cI remember my first day shooting was actually the opening of the show itself, and I had to ask Ruth Negga when to say my line because I didn\u2019t know when to do it.\u201d <\/p>\n Infiniti said that Anne Sewitsky, who directs the first two episodes of the series and finale, encouraged her to spend time on set after noticing the actor studying the monitors and asking a lot of questions early on.<\/p>\n \u201cThat turned into me showing up to set every single day, and following different departments around,\u201d Infiniti said, explaining she would tail everyone from the costume and lighting people to the show\u2019s DP, asking whatever questions came to mind. \u201cI would follow them around and be like, \u2018What does this do?\u2019 and \u2018Why do you do this?\u2019 and then \u2018How does this connect with this?\u2019 I was a student. I wanted to make sure that I was understanding my workplace and how every job fits in within [it], because we\u2019re all working toward the same goal.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid all the excitement, Infiniti received a life-changing email. She was asked to audition for a character known only as \u201cGirl\u201d in the movie that would eventually change her career. <\/p>\n \u201cI got my first audition via self-tape while I was shooting \u2018Presumed Innocent,’\u201d she recalled of her \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d audition. \u201cI was about a month into production, and I got an email in my inbox that said \u2018PTA\/CK production,\u2019 and didn\u2019t think anything of it. I was like, \u2018OK, well, we\u2019ll see if there\u2019s any interest. But if not, it\u2019s OK. I\u2019m doing it; I\u2019m going to put my all in it, and then just send it off.’\u201d<\/p>\n That self-tape led to six months of callbacks, culminating in a karate class observed by Anderson, before Infiniti was brought in to read with DiCaprio and Hall \u2014 a daunting prospect for any performer, let alone one trying to land their first film role. \u201c[My agent] told me that Leonardo DiCaprio and Regina Hall were going to be there, outside of Paul Thomas Anderson,\u201d she said. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK, great. Cool. So chill. Completely chill.’\u201d<\/p>\n The chemistry read was a success \u2014 and the rest is history. Infiniti immersed herself in a rigorous martial arts training program before embarking on the sprawling shoot, which saw the cast and crew cover a massive amount of ground in California and Texas (with VistaVision cameras in tow, of course) over the course of six months. <\/p>\n Infiniti said she could tell early on that she was working on a great movie, but nobody could have prepared her for the film\u2019s rapturous reception. \u201cI knew it was going to be something special, because I could feel the amount of love that Paul had for the film, and for Willa, and for Bob and Willa, and this father-daughter dynamic,\u201d she said. \u201cYou could feel the love from everybody that was working on it.\u201d <\/p>\n She added, \u201cBut the scale of everything, I couldn\u2019t even \u2026 My mind could not compute how [people would react to] it and the love that it\u2019s receiving, because I\u2019ve never done this before. I\u2019ve never been through this before.\u201d<\/p>\n Infiniti\u2019s performance in \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d is a triumph of discipline as much as artistry. Few actors her age could have stepped into such a high-stakes project with so much poise and carried an entire film on their shoulders. But when asked how she handled the pressure, she said she just put her faith in Anderson\u2019s material and showed up ready to work as hard as everyone else she had observed on sets.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like my determination to do justice by Paul\u2019s writing was so strong that, even on those days where it was difficult, it didn\u2019t feel like it was hard,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt like, \u2018I\u2019m here to do my job. I\u2019m here to show up and do my work, and do justice by Willa and by Paul\u2019s writing, and make sure that I\u2019m showing up for everybody within the scene and behind the camera.’\u201d<\/p>\n Where do you go after \u201cOne Battle After Another?\u201d Infiniti\u2019s future in Hollywood is as bright as anyone\u2019s, but the actress isn\u2019t thinking too hard about what comes next. She\u2019s more than earned the chance to take a breath and reflect back on a year that changed her life forever. <\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019m really going to finish this year completely filled with gratitude more than anything,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten the opportunity to experience things that I\u2019ve been dreaming about since I was a kid. I\u2019ve got to meet people that I\u2019ve been fans of since I was a kid. And I\u2019m just going to look back with so much love and so much gratitude toward everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On December 4, the\u00a0IndieWire Honors Winter 2025 ceremony\u00a0will\u00a0celebrate the creators and stars responsible\u00a0for crafting some of the year\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,19814,146,878,85,96163,96164,6453,46,5434],"class_list":{"0":"post-159592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-chase-infiniti","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-film","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-indiewire-honors","14":"tag-indiewire-honors-2025","15":"tag-interviews","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-one-battle-after-another"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"PRESUMED](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TCDPRIN_G2055.jpg\")
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\u2018One Battle After Another\u2019\u00a9Warner Bros\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n