Chase Infiniti was photographed by Guy Aroch on July 19 in the San Fernando Valley. Locations for this story were chosen from Paul Thomas Anderson's filmography, including this portrait shot at the El Royale Hotel in Studio City (above), featured in 1997's 'Boogie Nights.' Prada bandeau, earrings. Artistic and fashion director (and styling) Alison Edmond. Hair: Corree Moreno; Makeup: Amber Dreadon; Fashion Assistant: Elliott Pearson; Set Design: Jason Jensen; Production: Camp Productions. In Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, everything is supersized. It's his most expensive film to date, to the tune of some $130 million. There are set pieces of a scale previously unheard of for the director - explosions, car chases, bank robberies - as well as his most bankable star yet in Leonardo DiCaprio. Anderson and his A-list cast (which includes Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall and Teyana Taylor) have been on a lavish international press tour, and at the time of this writing, the film is the highest-rated movie of the year on MetaCritic. It's poised to be an Oscar frontrunner, maybe even the auteur's best shot at best picture after decades of nominations that failed to translate into a statuette. Related Stories Movies Critic's Notebook: Film's Failure to Capture Online Life Has Never Been More Glaring Movies Robert Redford, The Way He Was Perhaps its most audacious gamble, though, is that for all of the project's ambitions - to translate auteur pedigree to box office numbers, to continue Warner Bros. hot streak - much of its potential rests on the shoulders of an unknown actress: Chase Infiniti, a 25-year-old from Chicago, making her film debut. If you don't know Chase Infiniti by name yet, you've certainly seen her. In the film's first trailer, released this spring, she stands in a field firing off an assault rifle while clad in a frilly ballet skirt and combat boots. In later iterations, she's shown kicking those boots through the glass partition of a cop car. If you're on Instagram or TikTok, you've watched Infiniti lead the film's social media campaign, directing DiCaprio, Del Toro and Anderson through their viral video paces (in one, she forces two of them out of frame so that she can pose) or holding her own in a dance sequence with Taylor. She's been anointed by Louis Vuitton's Nicolas Ghesquière, too - he dressed Infiniti for the film's world premieres, adding her to a roster of muses that includes stars like Emma Stone and Blackpink's Lisa. It's a lot of pressure, but Infiniti doesn't feel any of it. "Obviously, I want a lot of people to watch this movie, but mostly I just want people to connect with it," she says. "I hope it touches people, that it gets them to laugh. More than anything, that's what will make this feel like a success." Part of her ease probably comes from the fact that, while the fate of One Battle remains to be seen, she has a chance to seize this moment in a huge way, and she's not going to waste the opportunity. Her next role is a starring slot in the ensemble of The Testaments, Bruce Miller's follow-up to Handmaid's Tale (it's a loose adaptation of Margaret Atwood's sequel), and she's waiting to get past One Battle's press tour and potential awards campaigns before she decides anything else. "She has this long-term vision for herself as an artist, and she knows that about herself," says Ruth Negga, who played Infiniti's onscreen mom in Presumed Innocent, her first - and only, so far - TV role. "She's instinctual." It's Labor Day weekend, exactly one month out from the movie's release, and the actress has flown to Los Angeles for a single day. A few hours after she wraps this interview, she'll head back to Chicago to unpack her new apartment before embarking on the aforementioned worldwide press tour. She arrives to breakfast in a Cubs jersey, happy to rep her home base in a city full of myopic industry folks who believe that this is the center of the universe. "I don't really want to," she laughs in response to my - very myopic! - inquiry about when she'll be moving out west. "I love Chicago." *** Left: Photographed at Studio City's El Royale Hotel, which went by the El Royale Motel when it was featured in Boogie Nights.
Coach faux jacket, jeans. Boochier hoops; Type Jewelry rings, studs.
Right: Photographed at The Valley Plaza shopping center sign in Valley Village, which figured prominently in the director's 1999 Magnolia.
Loewe knit and faux trim dress, gold lace-ups; IVI Los Angeles earrings, ring; Ashaha ring. Photographed by Guy Aroch (2) She was born Chase Infiniti Payne, after Nicole Kidman's Batman Forever character Chase Meridian and Buzz Lightyear's Toy Story catchphrase ("To infinity ... and beyond!"). Her parents raised her - and a younger sister, Dolce Imani - in Indianapolis, where they own a construction company. They never had any intention of putting her through the Hollywood paces, but they did hope the name would push her toward general greatness.