Two years. That is how long it took Chase Infiniti to go from sending her very first self-tape to standing on the Oscars stage as part of a Best Picture-winning film.
Two years from being a fresh graduate with a BFA in musical theater and zero screen credits to her name, to being a Golden Globe nominee, being called “the heart and soul of the movie” by Leonardo DiCaprio.
That is not an overnight success story. That is something rarer and more interesting: a story about someone who was so thoroughly prepared that when the moment finally arrived, she was simply ready. The auditions she almost skipped. The email she nearly deleted. She walked into the karate class as the only beginner in the room.
Every step in Chase Infiniti career timeline reads like a series of near-misses that somehow all landed exactly right. Here is how it actually happened, from the very beginning.
Her First Major Role in Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent (2024)
Before anyone outside the Chicago theater scene knew Chase Infiniti’s name, she was sitting in a casting waiting room for a legal thriller she had submitted a self-tape while still figuring out what professional acting even looked like.
In early 2023, she auditioned via self-tape for a role in Presumed Innocent: the daughter of a prosecutor played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who is accused of murdering his mistress. She got the part.
That sentence makes it sound straightforward. It was not. This was her first professional screen audition. She had no film credits, no television credits, and no industry track record. What she had was a BFA, a decade of stage experience, and whatever showed up on that self-tape that made the casting team believe she could hold her own in a major Apple TV+ production.
Inspired by Scott Turow’s 1987 novel, Presumed Innocent premiered on Apple TV+ on June 12, 2024. The series was a high-profile, prestige television event with an established cast and serious critical attention. For Chase Infiniti, it was her first time on a professional set, working with a camera crew, and figuring out in real time the difference between performing on a stage and performing for a lens.
She credited the mentorship she received on the set of Presumed Innocent with preparing her for One Battle After Another, which tells you everything about her approach to that first job. She was not just showing up to deliver her lines. She was studying. Learning. Treating every day on set like the expensive education it actually was.
Starring Alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga
Landing the role was one thing. Executing opposite two of the most respected screen actors working today was another challenge entirely.
Infiniti played Jaden Sabich, appearing across eight episodes of the limited series as the daughter of Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga’s characters. The role was not a background part. Jaden is central to the emotional stakes of the show, the child caught in the wreckage of her father’s accused crime, watching her family come apart from the inside. That requires real presence, not just competent line delivery.
On her very first production, she was working with actors like Gyllenhaal, Ruth Negga, and Peter Sarsgaard. Pretty daunting.
And yet the performance landed. That performance in Presumed Innocent won her a place in BAFTA’s 2025 Breakthrough U.S. lineup. BAFTA does not give out recognition for potential. They recognized what she had already done, on screen, in her very first professional credit.
What Presumed Innocent gave her beyond the credit was the real-world on-camera education that no drama school can fully replicate. She learned where not to look, how to hit a mark, and how to stay emotionally present while a crew of twenty people moved around her. She stored all of it. She would need it soon.
Landing Willa Ferguson in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another
While she was still in the middle of filming Presumed Innocent, an email arrived in her inbox that she very nearly ignored.
“I got my first audition via self-tape while I was shooting Presumed Innocent,” she recalled. “I was about a month into production, and I got an email in my inbox that said ‘PTA/CK production,’ and didn’t think anything of it. I was like, ‘OK, well, we’ll see if there’s any interest. But if not, it’s OK. I’m doing it; I’m going to put my all in it, and then just send it off.'”
The mysterious project offered no title, no plot summary, and only a two-page scene with characters listed as “Girl” and “Bob.” She had no idea she was auditioning for Paul Thomas Anderson. She had no idea that “Bob” was Leonardo DiCaprio. She just made the tape and sent it off.
It took Paul Thomas Anderson eight years to cast Willa, the teenage girl at the center of his epic tale of modern political rebellion. And once he found her, he made Chase Infiniti go through six months of testing: karate lessons, mixed martial arts training, chemistry reads with Leonardo DiCaprio, and weapons practice.
The karate class is the detail that tells you the most about what Anderson was looking for. She was the only beginner in the room and came out the other side with the lead role. Not because she was the most technically skilled fighter in that class. Because she did not flinch. She showed up as a beginner among more experienced practitioners and competed anyway, which is exactly what Willa would do.
Casting director Cassandra Kulukundis said, “Paul, in that screen test, literally handed her a razor and was like, ‘Shave Leo’s face.’ I’m sure she was shaking, but she held it all in and didn’t look like she missed a beat. So I was like, ‘This girl is gonna be absolutely fine.'”
She was more than fine.
Performing Opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Teyana Taylor
One Battle After Another is Paul Thomas Anderson’s most expensive film to date, to the tune of some $130 million, with set pieces on a scale previously unheard of for the director: explosions, car chases, bank robberies, and his most bankable star yet in Leonardo DiCaprio. And at the center of all of it, in her first feature film, was a 25-year-old from Indianapolis with one television credit.
In the film, Chase plays Willa Ferguson, also known as Charlene Calhoun, a karate purple belt kidnapped by a corrupt military officer who believes she may be his mixed-race daughter. Her father, played by DiCaprio, rallies former radicals to rescue her. The entire emotional architecture of the film rests on the father-daughter relationship between DiCaprio’s Bob and Willa. Without Chase Infiniti holding that center, the film does not work.
“Leo taught me so much,” she says. “Watching the freedom he had with his character choices was wonderful. I feel fortunate to have worked on Paul’s set with such an incredible cast.”
Working with Sean Penn added yet another layer of intensity. “It was so rewarding getting to work with Sean Penn. Paul, Sean, and I created this dance of how the DNA test scene would go.”
The chemistry reads with DiCaprio and her co-stars felt, as she described them, like “the coolest kind of masterclass.” She remembers leaving the room thinking, “I would love this part, but even if I don’t get it, I’ll take that with me forever.”
She got the part. And then she gave everything she had to it.
Awards Season 2026: Golden Globe, BAFTA, and SAG Nominations
When One Battle After Another opened in September 2025 to a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and immediate Oscar buzz, Chase Infiniti’s name was suddenly everywhere.
She received Best Actress nominations at the Critics’ Choice Awards, the BAFTA Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Four major nominations for a first film role. That is not a common outcome for a debut. It is not even a common outcome for established actors.
She also received the Breakthrough Award at the 2025 IndieWire Honors, an acknowledgment from the critical community that what she did in One Battle After Another was not simply a strong debut; it was something that changed the conversation.
Her rise in Hollywood has been meteoric. In June 2024, she appeared in Presumed Innocent. Less than two years later, she found herself onstage at the Oscars with the cast of One Battle After Another after the film won Best Picture.
She described the past year of her career as feeling like a “rocket ship ride.” That is not hyperbole. That is the only accurate description available.
At the 98th Oscars, Anderson said during his Best Picture speech: “And especially Chase.” Three words, in front of the entire industry. She had earned every one of them.
The Testaments and The Julia Set: What Comes Next
A lesser actress might have taken a breath after a Best Picture win and a handful of major award nominations. Chase Infiniti was already filming her next two projects before the awards season even ended.
She plays Agnes in The Testaments, the sequel series to Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which premiered on April 8, 2026. Agnes starts the show living a life of privilege within Gilead, a totalitarian regime that has overthrown the United States.
Showrunner Bruce Miller cast her after seeing her performance in Presumed Innocent and her K-pop dance covers, citing her versatility. That detail continues to be remarkable. A Hollywood showrunner watched college dance videos and made a casting decision. Versatility is not just a word in Chase Infiniti’s biography. It is a documented casting factor.
She also joined the cast of The Julia Set, an independent feature directed by Niki Byrne, playing Julia, a gifted undergraduate preparing for a highly competitive mathematics competition. The drama was shot in the UK and co-stars Christopher Briney, Gillian Anderson, and Jason Isaacs. Infiniti also serves as one of the project’s executive producers.
That producer credit is worth pausing on. She is not just acting in The Julia Set. She is building it. At 25, with two screen credits to her name, she is already thinking about what it means to have a hand in shaping a project from the inside.
Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and Variety’s Actors to Watch
The industry recognition has not stopped at award nominations.
In October 2025, Infiniti was named one of Variety’s “10 Actors to Watch” at the Newport Beach Film Festival. In December 2025, she was announced as one of BAFTA’s “Breakthrough U.S.” cohort, for her work in Presumed Innocent and One Battle After Another.
She was also named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Hollywood and Entertainment for 2026, a list that tracks the young people most likely to define the next decade of their industry. The editors of that list are not wrong.
Off-screen, she became a Louis Vuitton brand ambassador in late 2025. Creative director Nicolas Ghesquière described her as someone who “radiates an authenticity that is truly unforgettable.” Her lavender Oscar gown reportedly took 750 hours to construct.
“The fact that I’ve gone from that project to campaigning for that movie to now promoting the show, that’s the crazy part. Like, I feel like my life has totally changed in even a year,” she said.
“You couldn’t have told me three years ago that I would be where I am now, and getting the opportunity to be in the rooms or projects that I’m in with some of the most legendary people in the industry. It’s unbelievable,” Infiniti says.
It is unbelievable. It is also completely logical when you trace every step that got her there. The decade of stage work. The BFA. The kickboxing. The K-pop crew. The self-tape she almost did not send. The karate class she walked into was the only beginner class. Every one of those moments was a brick. By the time Hollywood came looking, she had already built the whole foundation.
