ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
Paul Thomas Anderson's new film, "One Battle After Another," is a lot of things. It's a chase movie. It is a story about revolutionaries.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I want you to create a show. This is an announcement of revolution.
LIMBONG: And through its depiction of detention centers, white supremacists and political extremism, it is a timely movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: Let's fight fire with fire.
LIMBONG: But at its heart, "One Battle After Another" is a girl dad movie, a story about a father and his daughter. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, a washed-up freedom fighter who has to protect his daughter Willa from an enemy from his past. Chase Infiniti plays Willa. She's a relatively new actor. This is her first movie. And when we talked recently, she explained how Bob and Willa's relationship shaped her understanding of her character.
CHASE INFINITI: I think something that me and Leo honed in on very early on, especially with me specifically, is the fact that Willa and Bob have this mindset and generational gap that is so different between the two of them. Like, Bob is stuck in the past. He's paranoid. He doesn't want Willa to have a phone. He doesn't want, really, any technology being used in the household. Willa is a 16-year-old girl in this small town, and of course, she's going to have a phone. Of course, she's going to rebel against her father, who's almost keeping her locked up and in the dark about a lot of who she is and her story and just the world in general.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER")
INFINITI: (As Willa) I didn't ask for this. That's just how the cards were rolled out for me.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: (As Bob) It's not cards. You don't roll cards. It's dice.
INFINITI: (As Willa) Dad, what is wrong with you?
And I think really honing in on the lack of information that Willa has about her life and also that generational gap between her and her father was the key to bringing her to life.
LIMBONG: But on the other note, it's - like, a lot of this movie is about what all parents leave behind to their kids, right? The legacies that get passed down...
INFINITI: Yeah.
LIMBONG: ...And what a child decides to do with that information. Did any of that sort of resonate with you?
INFINITI: I mean, I think that it can resonate with anybody that's my age or anybody who was my age at any point. Your parents before you are bringing forward their past experience and, in a way, laying it on you, whether it be good or bad. And I think that that's something that is obvious with Willa, even if it's not in the present moment. So I think that that was something that was pretty easy to relate to because there's stories that you hear from your parents. There's stories that they tell you of their past and the crazy things that they have done or, whether or not be crazy, just having that be brought into your life.
LIMBONG: I think you have to pick and choose which ones you care about...
INFINITI: Yeah.
LIMBONG: ...And which ones you're like, OK, cool. OK.
INFINITI: Yeah, yeah.
LIMBONG: Yeah. I've been talking to some of my friends who haven't gotten to see it yet, and I've just been like...
INFINITI: Yeah.
LIMBONG: ...Be ready. This movie cooks. It's like a straight-up action movie. This is...
INFINITI: Yes, this is a Paul Thomas Anderson action movie.
LIMBONG: Yeah, action movie. There's a lot of stuff going on. You know, there's shooting and fighting and car chases. How did you feel about doing the action scenes?
INFINITI: Oh, I was so excited. I was so excited.
LIMBONG: Yeah. Were you actually driving towards the end there?
INFINITI: Yeah. I did...
LIMBONG: That's you behind the wheel? Yeah.
INFINITI: Yeah. Like, I did all of my stunts. I'm, like, 99.9% sure I did all my stunts, including the driving.
LIMBONG: You have a background in kickboxing?
INFINITI: Yeah. Kickboxing fitness, OK? I wasn't, like, a kickboxer. Like, I wasn't that good, but, like, I knew how to, like - I knew basic punches and kicks that really helped me land the job. And then once I started training for the film, I was like, OK, I have a strong foundation. And I think dancing, as well, was something that gave me the strongest foundation for the physical demands of the film.
LIMBONG: How so?
INFINITI: Just having an overall body awareness. Like, I think that having the base foundation of punching and kicking, when I had to learn kicks from different styles, whether it be like jujitsu or taekwondo or karate, I knew how to pretty much not hurt myself, and I knew how to maneuver my body in a way that I could stay as safe as possible.
LIMBONG: OK, I swear I do more research on you than just reading your Wikipeda...
INFINITI: No, listen.
LIMBONG: ...But I did, on Wikipeda...
INFINITI: It's so fine. (Laughter) There's not that much out there on me.
LIMBONG: I did learn - I need you to - I'm doing a quick fact check.
INFINITI: Yeah.
LIMBONG: So your working name, Chase Infiniti, is a combination of Nicole Kidman's character from "Batman Forever" and the quote from Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story," "to infinity and beyond." Is that true?
INFINITI: Yeah. Yeah, my parents picked those two names for me from those movies.
LIMBONG: OK. OK. All right. Are you a big "Batman Forever"-head? Have you ever seen it?
INFINITI: You know, what's crazy? I watched it for the first time only a couple years ago. Like, I grew up watching "Toy Story" because it's...
LIMBONG: It's "Toy Story."
INFINITI: ...An animated Disney film, so - and it's "Toy Story." Like, how could you not watch that as a kid?
LIMBONG: Yeah.
INFINITI: But I just recently watched Batman - "Batman Forever." And I was like, ooh, OK, I see it now. All I know is that, like, before I had watched the film, my parents would always talk about how they were like, she's such a strong, confident character who really, like - they just liked how cool she was also. And they were like, regardless of if we're having a boy or a girl, the name is going to be Chase because Nicole Kidman as Chase Meridian was so sick. And they were like, we have to go with that name. It's too perfect.
LIMBONG: That's so tight. All right. What's, like, one thing you want people to take away from this movie?
INFINITI: I think that the movie is such an individual experience, and there's something in it for everybody. But I think the overall feeling - more than a message - the overall feeling of family and caring for one another and caring for your neighbor and having empathy for others is what I would like people to take away the most out of the entire film.
LIMBONG: Chase Infiniti is the star of the new film "One Battle After Another." It's in theaters now. Chase, this has been a blast. Thanks so much for talking.
INFINITI: Thank you so much. I love being here. Thank you.
LIMBONG: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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