Columbia College Chicago Theatre alum Chase Infiniti ’22, a graduate of the Theatre Program’s BFA Program in Musical Theatre Performance, makes her feature-film acting debut in One Battle After Another, costarring with Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and D.W. Moffett. Infiniti, whose television credits include Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent and Hulu’s forthcoming The Testaments, was interviewed by the Chicago Reader (Chicago’s premier alternative newspaper), whose reporter, Zachary Lee, calls the new movie “riveting.” Writes Lee:

“A loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 book, Vineland, the crux of the film focuses on Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti). Willa has never known her mother, Perfidia Beverly Hills (a live-wire Teyana Taylor), who was part of the revolutionary group known as the French 75 alongside Bob. The group’s nemesis, Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), armed with the ’embrace of the federal government’ (read: an armed private militia that he can command to storm any town he chooses), remains obsessed with Bob and Willa and descends upon their hometown to capture them. . . . Infiniti . . . brings an incendiary steeliness and iconoclastic resolve to Willa, who realizes that her parents’ struggles for independence and freedom are now her own.”

Lee adds that Infiniti – who came to Chicago from Indianapolis, Indiana, to study at Columbia College – “credits Chicago as formative in her portrayal of Willa, sharing how the support network of friends, peers, and professors provided a strong foundation for her to take on roles that put her outside of her comfort zone. She cites Chicagoans’ overall knack for building community and protecting the found family as another touchstone of inspiration.” While in Chicago, she was a trainer in kickboxing and co-founded the K-pop cover dance group Duple Dance Crew. “I went to school for musical theater, and so I am familiar with moving my body in a space, but I was also a kickboxing fitness instructor,” Infiniti says in the Reader interview. “Dance helped me be aware of the demands of all types of choreography, but it also taught me to keep myself as safe as possible while I was moving. Kickboxing helped ensure I embody the physicality and intensity of someone like Willa, who is amazing at karate and could handle her own in her fight.”

As noted in a recent Vanity Fair profile, “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.’ Then her 2022 senior showcase caught the attention of a manager. ‘I thought he was a scam at first,’ she says. ‘It was too easy—there’s no way I’d get that lucky day one.’ But sure enough, that manager helped her get an agent.” To read the Vanity Fair profile, click here.

Says Infiniti in the Reader interview: “I’m grateful for the professors at Columbia and my friends who poured a lot of advice and empowerment into me. That support network gave me the strength to push myself in ways I hadn’t done before.”

Here’s a promotional video for One Battle After Another, which premiered September 8, 2025, and went into theatrical release in the United States on September 26:

 

To read the full Chicago Reader interview with Chase Infiniti, click here.