By Paul Salfen for AMFM Magazine | November 21, 2025
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest masterpiece, One Battle After Another, has left audiences reeling with its high-octane chases, emotional gut-punches, and a father-daughter relationship that feels ripped from real life. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a paranoid ex-revolutionary racing to save his missing teenage daughter (newcomer Chase Infiniti), alongside Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor, the Warner Bros. release has quickly become one of the most discussed—and re-watched—films of the year.
In a candid conversation, Chase Infiniti and Regina Hall sat down to talk about saying yes to PTA, manifesting dream houses in the Redwoods, and why this movie refuses to leave your head after the credits roll.
An Instant “Yes” to Paul Thomas Anderson
When Paul Thomas Anderson calls, the answer is obvious.
“As soon as I saw Paul’s name, it was like, ‘Of course,’” Regina Hall laughs. “Yes before I even read it.”
Chase Infiniti, making her major studio debut after standout work in Presumed Innocent (2024) and fresh off graduating from Columbia College Chicago in 2022, felt the same magnetic pull. Anderson himself later raved about her first day on set opposite DiCaprio: “I thought she might be nervous… But she wasn’t. She was instantly a professional. And the work we got from her that day was something quite magical.”
Redwoods, Rain, and Making Up Entire Backstories on the Drive
Filming across California and Texas and Northern California gave the production an anything-goes energy that only a contemporary Paul Thomas Anderson movie can have.
“We drove through the redwoods in the rain and made up stories the whole time,” Infiniti remembers. “We’d point at a random house and go, ‘That’s our house!’ ‘Why didn’t we shoot there first?’ We manifested entire storylines on those drives. It was surreal when you’re going set to set and really grasping the enormity of what you’re doing.”
Hall adds, “There were definitely moments where you look around and think, I get paid to do this? I’m going to remember this forever.”
Advice for the Next Generation
Both actresses have inspired countless young performers—Hall with her iconic run from the Scary Movie franchise to acclaimed turns in Support the Girls and Master, and Infiniti as a musical-theatre-trained breakout now headed to Hulu’s The Testaments.
So what do they tell someone dreaming of following in their footsteps?
“You’ve got nothing to prove, but everything to show,” Infiniti says firmly.
Hall nods. “Follow the knowing. If you have that deep knowing, you have to chase it. Your passion will lead you exactly where you’re supposed to go.”
That Magic Word: “Action”
When the intensity ramps up—car chases, paranoia, family secrets exploding—how do they stay locked in?
“There’s something about hearing ‘Action,’” Hall says. “You drop in immediately. You don’t feel the cold, nothing. You’re not cold anymore until they yell ‘Cut,’ and suddenly you’re freezing again.”
Why People Can’t Stop Talking About It
One Battle After Another isn’t a movie you file away and forget. Viewers are debating it, rewatching it, dissecting it.
“That’s the biggest gift,” Hall says. “People are having real conversations. Everyone takes away something different, but the fact that they’re talking, thinking, engaging long after they leave the theater? That’s everything.”
Infiniti agrees. “It doesn’t just end when the lights come up. It stays with you.”
As Paul Thomas Anderson himself put it, at the core are two timeless questions every audience can relate to: Can this father find his daughter? And what does family even mean when the past keeps crashing into the present?
Judging by the buzz—and by the radiant gratitude pouring out of Hall and Infiniti—the answer is a resounding yes.
One Battle After Another is now playing in theaters everywhere.
